On 06/27/2014 05:07 PM, Mark Rousell wrote:
Clearly, however, Red Hat's lawyers (and the FSF it
seems) think such a limitation is not a violation of GPL.
For what it's worth, such limiting contractual terms (even if freely
entered into) do seem on the face of it to be a violation of clause 6 of
GPL2 and possibly clause 12 of GPL3 (amongst others possibly). Anyway,
as above, it seems that FSF disagrees with me so I need to read GPL2 and
3 much more thoroughly!
For what it's worth, Bradley Kuhn has spent a great deal of time and
effort in dealing with GPL violations. The fact that even he concedes
it is likely not a GPL violation speaks volumes; the fact that he, the
FSF, etc, have not initiated a lawsuit against Red Hat for a GPL
violation speaks even louder. I was taught as a child that actions
speak louder than words; and inaction speaks louder yet, especially as
he finds Red Hat's practice to be distasteful. If there were a case to
be made I would think Mr. Kuhn or another similarly-opinioned individual
would have made it by now; this issue has been around for a decade, it's
not a new thing.
But my favorite line from his other post is simply this: " I do find
myself wishing that the people debating whether the exact right number
of angels are dancing on the head of this particular GPL pin would
instead spend some time helping to end the flagrant, constant, and
obvious GPL violations with which I spent much time dealing time each
week."
