On 4/17/06, Ted Mittelstaedt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > The original copyright holder gave the FSF this right when they used > the GPL on their code, because the GPL isn't simply a statement of > principles, it is a copyrighted document of the FSF that the original > copyright holder only has permission to use if they accept all the > terms of the license. And, one of those terms is a clause in the GPL > that allows the FSF to change the GPL license in the future.
Actually, no. You've pretty obviously not actually read the GPL if you think this. You're making a fairly widespread mistake here in your underlying assumptions -- the FSF only attempts to litigate and settle license infringements on projects to which it has been assigned the copyright. Many, many more people than just the FSF apply the standard GPL boilerplate license to their programs -- the same way that many, many more people than just the creators of the Creative Commons licenses apply those standard boilerplate licenses to their works. If the FSF doesn't hold title, they stay out of the way. Simply applying the GPL to a work does not assign copyright or title to the FSF. A given version of the GPL is static. Linus Torvalds has stated that the Linux kernel is licensed under GPL v2, and not "GPL version 2 (or, at your option, any later version)". A given author can put his or her trust in the FSF to come up with licenses that are not averse to his or her wishes by adding the "(or, at your option, any later version)" clause in the copyright statement. However, this is PURELY OPTIONAL. Many authors put their trust in only a single version of the GPL, and this is the option that Mr. Torvalds has chosen. As well, any author can change any aspect of the GPL text, as license agreements are generally considered standard boilerplate -- but, in order to avoid misrepresentation, they must call it something other than a "GNU Public License". Most authors tend not to do this, simply because it takes a lawyer to figure out how best to do so. However, there is an additional capacity to change the GPL FOR A SPECIFIC WORK -- modifying the "linkage" section by adding an additional permission to link to a specific library that has a license that is incompatible with the GPL itself. Thus, the fairly-prevalent "In addition, explicit permission is granted to link this project with OpenSSL." clause in GPL'd projects that use OpenSSL. However, this poses a problem: If I am not the copyright holder of a piece of code that has network routines, that has been placed under the GPL by its copyright holder who has not given that permission, I cannot legally distribute a modified version of it that I create that links against OpenSSL without acquiring separate and explicit permission (license) from the copyright holder. That's the primary problem... and when you have teams of contributors, sometimes they're enough of zealots to not wish to make that change for the code that they have contributed, thus preventing OpenSSL-using versions of GPL'd software from being distributed. That's the issue that I face as a developer. OpenSSL is a superior product in almost every way to GNUTLS. (I find this to be true of most things that the GNU project does -- when they try to duplicate good functionality available elsewhere in source form, they have a tendency [with the types of things that I'm concerned with] to botch some aspect of it.) I'd rather not be forced to use the latter when making someone else's code be SSL/TLS-capable. Can't we all just get along for once? > I am aware this hasn't been tested in court, and would probably > be invalidated, but I have already said > that the entire GPL has not been tested in court, and that if it > was parts would be invalidated, that is one of the GPL's > weaknesses. One of the FSF's principle jobs is to try to get > out-of-court > settlements made whenever copyright holders want to litigate against > infringers, specifically because the FSF -does not- want the GPL > tested in court. So far they have been successful. The GPL, according to every lawyer I've spoken with on the matter, WOULD hold up in court, specifically because it doesn't require the author of the work in question to cede any rights whatsoever to the FSF -- including the right to change the terms of the license that the work is distributed under. If the companies didn't settle, they'd have potential civil and criminal liability. Would you willingly go to prison because you thought the GPL was unenforceable, or pay fines because you thought the GPL was unenforceable? Especially in these post-Enron days, company officers and directors are very uncomfortable with the idea, because they can be held personally accountable for criminal actions. And while there's always the chance that a given court would interpret the GPL as enforceable or unenforceable, the appeals process alone would eat up tens of thousands of (insert currency unit here) -- money that would be going to prosecute a questionable case, as opposed to increasing shareholder value in the company, which is also something that can be held against the directors and officers of a company. In essence, the simple reason for settling with releasing the source code of a GPL-derived work is that they don't want to be found to be criminals, in any context. And, for a moment of 'duh, gee, boss, I shoulda thoughta that' reasoning: Just because code that was made available under the old or new BSD licenses (which basically just state that the Regents of the University of California at Berkeley could not be held liable for the program's performance or nonperformance, regardless of whether the advertising clause is there) can be made proprietary since there's no rules against it in the license does not mean that the old or new BSD licenses must for any reason apply to all code that's made available over the Internet. A copyright holder has the right to choose what rights to license, and under what terms those rights are licensed -- simply because a copyright holder holds the EXCLUSIVE right to copy a work. (Fair use being the only exception.) This exclusive right to copy a work, and the exclusive right to choose what terms under which a work can be copied, is what makes these damned licenses so hard to work with. -Kyle H ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List [email protected] Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
