On 14-10-17 04:10 AM, Kern Sibbald wrote:
I am not taking any side, but could you be more specific on your
comment "the result this would have on the GPL"?
Thanks,
Kern
Please do take a side at some point, or take both sides, or your own side
The key phrase from Alsup, the trial judge, is that he writes "it does
not hold":
''Though the trial court did add the caveat that it “does not hold that
the structure, sequence and organization of all computer programs may be
stolen,” Copyrightability Decision, 872 F. Supp. 2d at 1002, it is hard
to see how its method of operation analysis could lead to any other
conclusion.'
well, why not? Why doesn't it hold that the wider implication is that
the SSO of all programs may be stolen?
It's notable that the trial judge doesn't write "infringed" or "copied",
he goes right to the word "stolen," which is so often mistakenly used in
copyright. Now, when joe public downloads a DVD, Hollywood wants to
call that "stealing," but it's not -- and I have no doubt that Alsup is
quite aware of the distinction. Which makes his language choice, let's
say, interesting.
When he writes "it does not hold" my take is that this is a slip. He
arrived at his conclusion, and then considered the wider consequences
were his decision to be applied elsewhere, and then, realizing what the
potential result would be, wrote "it does not hold" exactly because of
the potential implication. Speculation on my part, but I put another
negation on his negation -- it does hold.
Now, this is just one trial, but let's consider the wider implications.
If the SCOTUS says, sure, go ahead and copy the SSO of any computer
program, (not that they would phrase it like that), what are the
implications?
In this case we're talking about OpenJDK. OpenJDK is under the GPL.
Well, now anyone can come along, copy the SSO and distribute without
consideration of the GPL. Wow, that's huge.
Even bigger than that, there's no copyright at all, or nothing
enforceable, on SSO.
Please correct my reading of the appeals court decision. I'm literally
asking how others parse that excerpt from the appeals decision.
-Thufir
