On 14-10-19 09:13 AM, Kern Sibbald wrote:
Thanks for your response. I don't want to take sides yet because I
don't yet fully understand the case. If Google copied copyrighted code
in violation of the licence they have a problem.
For the GPL IANAL but the licence permits copying the code provided
that the copyright is maintained thus though not explicit it is clear
to me any GPLed APL can be copied.
Kern
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5
I think this exactly hits the nail on the head: "...provided that the
copyright is maintained." By changing the license from GPL to ASL (or,
theoretically, closed-source), I don't consider that ok. In the pdf,
"verbatim" shows up nine times in the context of copying. It's "novel"
that they just copied the declaring code:
"...Google conceded that it copied it [the declaring code] verbatim,"
page 27.
This is something which only FOSS is vulnerable to, because the
declaring code is there to be copied. For proprietary code, there might
be some documentation, but it wouldn't get copied verbatim in the same
way. The implication that it's then possible to, literally, copy the
API verbatim (p 27), not for the purpose of compatibility, but to cash
in on the popularity of the original (p 51), without trying to figure
out the original (p 48), is huge. Again, this only applies to FOSS, and
would allow anyone to steal an API (p 42). Stolen, the word used not
just by the first trial, but also by the appeals court. Note that
there's no dissenting opinion from the appeals court.
Google found a work-around to remove the GPL, in certain circumstances,
of certain types of code, if, and it's a big if, they ultimately
prevail. Since Google, or someone, will eventually come along, copy all
that declaring code, verbatim, farm out the implementing code, and slap
the ASL license on the result, why use the GPL at all?
-Thufir
