From: Daniel Carrera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,From: Daniel Carrera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,From: Nathan Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
1) Within your scenario, you should also consider the *probability* of the GPL being found wanting. This is an important point. For example, I don't have a contingency plan in the event of meteor collisions. But the probability of one happening is low enough that I'm not worried.
That is a debatable point. For every claim that the GnU General Public License is bulletproof, I can probably find a counter-claim that, in one user's words, "the GPL has holes you could drive a truck through". Who's to say which is correct with genuine authority and independence?
Well, my point of view (that the GPL is safe) has over 20 years' worth of testing in the form of the fact that not a single GPL violator (and there have been several) has felt that the could win against the GPL in court, and so each one has preferred to settle the issues out of court. If the GPL were weak, it seems likely that people would have taken advantage of that by now.
In the past 5 years, products released under the GPL - specifically Linux-distributions and products designed to run on them - have had an increasing amount of enterprise exposure, backing and support. I can attest to a number of enterprises I know of promoting Linux-distributions as a stable and mature platform for business delivery to the corporate executive. Where the money goes, the suits follow. This current suit definitely won't be the last.
As worded, the GPL is hardly weak. But, it doesn't have to be to fail in court, since there are many different angles from which it can be challenged. A plaintiff going to court simply to challenge the validity of the GPL isn't likely to happen; after all, what would be the point? Rather, as with the current suit, the GPL comes up incidentally during proceedings.
I have no doubt of the FSF's and open-source community's ability to adapt to piecemeal rulings on the GPL, but that does depend on _what_ the rulings are. Which brings me back to my original question.
Now, I wasn't really comparint the probability of the GPL failing with that of a meteor impact. That was just an example. I'm just saying that probabilities should be considered. The point is that not all posibilities are created equal. This is a point that many people seem to miss (I'm not saying you did).
But yes, it's also wise to look at as many options as is feasible.
Exactly! That's why click-wrap and friends have been such a huge deal on this list and on other forums; "what if someone wanted to sue for damages?". The likelihood of a volunteer developer or small development business actually being sued into the ground by an enterprise is slim, but no chances are taken.
I agree on that point. Those licenses are very unlike the GPL. But there are many licenses out there, some of them close to the GPL in fashion. Those could also be in the same boat as the LGPL, and claiming that they have nothing to do with the Free Software Foundation might not help down the track; if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, after all...
In an ideal world, association with the FSF shouldn't matter. A license is
(should be) valid if it's language is clear and legal. So if the GPL is
valid/invalid, I would expect that similar licenses would be likely to be
valid/invalid respectively.
I would hope so too. It's really easy to avoid the whole question of which licenses are valid and enforceable and which licenses are not through tarnishing by association. Unfortunately, that's exactly what some will do.
And of course, should the decision go the _other_ way, that being the GPL has not been found wanting, a long-time claimed stumbling block to adoption of GPL'd products would be diminished, or removed entirely. The GPL's near relations would again also benefit.
I had never heard of this stumbling block (not to say that it wasn't there). But I've never heard of someone not wanting to use a GPL product because they weren't sure if the license would stand in court.
It's a point commonly brought up by analysts when handing out advice through c|net, BusinessWeek, InfoWorld, and friends. They don't put stock into the GPL apparently because a high-priced team of lawyers didn't create it. That is, of course, a silly point to make, but they make it anyway. And people listen, including The People Who Matter™ at any given workplace.
I agree on this point, too. Which raises the point that perhaps, were the BSD license used for most open-source projects and were _that_ license the one that IBM was backing, would this whole situation of grander and grander claims by SCO each month or so not have come to pass? For that matter, could the proceedings have moved quicker?
Ah... now I can't help but bring up a conspiracy theory...
Why is SCO doing this anyways? Ultimately it's because either they, or their
masters (if any) cannot grab GPL'd Linux, steal the great stuff, and break
compatibility. You know, embrace, steal, extend and lock-in.
That's a theory I've heard advanced more than a few times. Proving SCO's motives in this area looks like a tooth-'n-nail fight.
The GPL is precisely what makes Linux such a strong competitor. If Linux were BSD then everyone could just grab whatever improvements Linux made and extend them. Linux would be perpetually behind while certain companies get a free ride on the effort of thousands of volunteers.
If Linux were BSD there would be no suit, simply because there would be no
competition.
I agree wholeheartedly with this point. And there wouldn't be thousands of volunteers if they thought they were providing free labor for others, particularly development houses that then released products only for the Windows platform. Fortunately, we're not in that dimension.
Cheers, Nathan. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
