Rick,

I suggested that metric to tease Larry. He's been vociferous about the GPL and its enforcement previously.

You bring up the issue of court tests, though. It's not really the licenses that need testing, but some of the assumptions upon which they are built. So, Jacobsen v. Katzer was useful because it establishes that the Free Software developer has an economic interest and can use the full gamut of enforcement tools to protect that interest. Not because it included a court test of the Artistic License Version 1, a license that we are happily mostly rid of.

Oracle v. Google, if it stands (we have about 2 months to see if Oracle will really file cert), does two things, I think. It makes it even clearer that we can re-implement proprietary APIs in Free Software with impunity, and it makes it even less likely that we can successfully enforce that run-time combination of works at an "API" boundary creates a derivative work. We'll take that, we're more interested in freedom than enforcement.

I completely agree with you that it's silly to litigate with a Free Software developer. I'll take it farther, though. It's even silly to litigate with a Free Software developer /when they're wrong./ SFLC has previously insisted that dynamic-loaded Linux kernel drivers be provided in source form and under a Free Software license as a step in compliance. IMO they're on shaky ground with that; but it's easier to comply, in almost all cases, than to fight. So, I will continue to advise against proprietary run-time-loadable drivers despite Judge Alsop's finding on APIs.

    Thanks

    Bruce

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