: How To Break The GPL - Copyright versus Contract
-Original Message-
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 6:45 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Open-Source License Discussion
Subject: RE: How To Break The GPL - Copyright versus Contract
"Dennis E. Hamilton" wrote:
However, my sense of the GPL is that the Free Software Foundation is relying
only on Copyright for the GPL, and that there is nothing but a conditional
(non-exclusive and royalty free) license of copyright conveyed in the GPL
(apart from the "no warranty"
"Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M." wrote:
If so, the FSF position would be that they own the
copyright interest and THEY are assigning YOU a non-excusive copyright
interest to make derivative works under the terms and conditions of the GPL.
In the case of works published by the FSF, certainly. In the
On Thu, 09 Mar 2000, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
I guess here it is a matter of asking the FSF whether they see themselves as
having accomplished anything else, since when we employ the GPL we appear to
be assigning copyright to the FSF.
Although members of GNU, and a few other people, assign
"Why should we care how the laws against robbery are drafted?
If Alice doesn't care, at least we should care.
The point I wanted to make (not clear enough as it seems) is that a license
is only part of protecting the GPL source base. The license by itself will
probably not be enough to do
After following this thread for a few days I have to raise the question:
"Why should Alice care at all about any legal tricks to workaround the GPL?"
In my scenario Alice takes all the GPL code that she can use, hires an
interface designer to hide the functionality behind a smashy interface
On Mon, 06 Mar 2000, Schilling, Richard wrote:
BT (here it comes) . . . in the third setence, (starts with "But
when you distribute . . .") if Alice's Program is BASED ON software
licensed under the GPL, then the GPL applies to Alice's program. In the
original scenario, where
terms to facts
is difficult.
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.
www.cyberspaces.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Original Message-
From: Schilling, Richard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 3:17 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: How To Break The GPL
I am
that runs on Bob's PC.
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.
www.cyberspaces.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Original Message-
From: Justin Wells [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 3:45 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How To Break The GPL
On Mon, Mar 06, 2000 at 02:26:00PM -0500, John
On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, David Johnson wrote:
On Sat, 04 Mar 2000, Ken Arromdee wrote:
According to RMS, plugins are *also* derivative works, so both your examples
would come under the GPL. (Which produces the odd result that it is legal
to write a GPL plugin for Internet Explorer but not
and added an additional section to deal with code written to be
included in a larger framework of an application.
-Original Message-
From: Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 7:02 AM
To: Mark Wells; David Johnson
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE
Schilling, Richard; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: How To Break The GPL
On Fri, 03 Mar 2000, Schilling, Richard wrote:
Generally, if the program Alice writes for Bob references *anything* in
the
GPLed library, Bob's program could be considered a deriverative work. If
the program Alice
]]
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 2:12 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How To Break The GPL
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000, David Johnson wrote:
But what does "direct functionality" mean in terms of
licensing? I can see
functionality being added to a GPL application in ways that
Dennis E. Hamilton
InfoNuovo
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
tel. +1-206-779-9430 (gsm)
fax. +1-425-793-0283
http://www.infonuovo.com
-Original Message-
From: Ken Arromdee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, March 04, 2000 23:12
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How To Break The GPL
.
www.cyberspaces.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Original Message-
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 10:54 AM
To: Ken Arromdee; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: How To Break The GPL - Direct Functionality versus
Copyrighted Expression
I am concerned
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. scripsit:
Under the law of copyright, a derivative work is an original work of
authorship based on a pre-existing work.
What we have here is analogous to the following: Trent writes an article
which he copyrights. He then grants to the public (i.e. anyone) the
right
John,
Your hypo is interesting. I think it highlights how different software is
from other literary works protected by copyright. I have a couple of
thoughts on this.
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. scripsit:
Under the law of copyright, a derivative work is an original work of
authorship based on a
On Sat, 04 Mar 2000, Ken Arromdee wrote:
According to RMS, plugins are *also* derivative works, so both your examples
would come under the GPL. (Which produces the odd result that it is legal
to write a GPL plugin for Internet Explorer but not for Netscape 4, since
Internet Explorer comes
On Fri, 3 Mar 2000 17:44:09 -0500, Justin Wells [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I don't think a court would have a hard time
finding consideration.
Yes. There is much judicial discretion regarding consideration. The concept
has come under considerable academic attack, mainly because its flexibility
Hi People.
Attempting to follow the Alice / Trent thread here:
1. Alice's software requires Trent's library to work; much like a car needs
wheels to work. A manufacturer of cars could choose to supply you the vehicle
without wheels and give you the option to get the wheels from the wheel
On Sat, 04 Mar 2000, Jonathan Marks wrote:
From my understanding of the GPL,
Alice's work is derived from Trent's as Alice's *intent* is for her software to
work with Trent's library.
We definitely need to define the term "derive", both in the copyright sense,
and as it applies to code.
If a body of software has it's
direct funcionality added to, modified or changed, then the resulting outcome
should become part of the body of software in terms of copyright and
licensing.
I would agree with everything expect for the "added to" part. In code terms, it
may very
David Johnson scripsit:
If everything that *works* with some piece of code is derived from that code,
then everything in my current OS distribution is ultimately derived from
Linux and Glibc!
Glibc is deliberately not under the GPL, so the issue doesn't arise.
The Linux kernel is under the
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000, David Johnson wrote:
We definitely need to define the term "derive", both in the copyright sense,
and as it applies to code. My Dodge automobile works with my Bridgestone tires,
but it is hardly derivitive of the tires :-)
A sometimes useful tool of logic is to take
On Sat, 04 Mar 2000, Jonathan Marks wrote:
I would agree with everything expect for the "added to" part. In code terms, it
may very well be derivitive, but it hardly demands an identical copyright or
license. As an example, neither the GTK nor the Qt libraries require that
additional
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000, David Johnson wrote:
But what does "direct functionality" mean in terms of licensing? I can see
functionality being added to a GPL application in ways that both would and
would not violate the GPL. If I wrote a new plugin for Gimp, it would add
functionality, but would
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000, David Johnson wrote:
Ah, but the question is whether everything is a derivitive or not. If they
are, then it is only because of provisions within the Linux and Glibc licenses
that allow many of them to exist in their current form. In other words, if
there were no Linux
I would very much like to hear that there is a flaw in this logic. If so,
where is it?
In my understanding, Alice must not have used the GPL'ed software
in her design and testing. It would be very hard to avoid this
in practice. Claiming to have avoided it, and still distributing
This is very similar to the fiasco involving some Quake patches that have been
flying around (check out slashdot's archives froma few days ago to get
links). Basically someone had taken the GPL'd Quake source and tried to clean
up some server security problems. They released the changes in the
This basically sounds like "user does the link".
The FSF takes the position that if you distribute software that can only be
run by linking it with something GPLed, your software is a derivative work of
the GPLed software even if you don't include any parts of it. So by these
standards, Alice
RMS may be correct in this case. I am not a lawyer. The counter-argument
that MSFT could ban people from making Windows software doesn't fly.
They CAN ban you from creating derivitive works based on their copyrighted
material, they have every right to do that. By encouraging people to
create
From: Justin Wells [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 2:01 PM
To: Ken Arromdee
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How To Break The GPL
RMS may be correct in this case. I am not a lawyer. The counter-argument
that MSFT could ban people from making Windows software doesn't
I wrote:
Alice could test using the unfree library (for which, perhaps, she does not
have a distribution license) and distribute the unfree application to run
with Trent's freely available clone.
Two little ironies that I thought of just after posting:
1) The harder Trent works to make his
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 10:45:47 -0500
From: John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I would very much like to hear that there is a flaw in this logic. If so,
where is it?
The flaw is in treating the law as though it were a computer program.
The law considers intent, and ignores technical
From: Mark Wells [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, Forrest J. Cavalier III wrote:
I would very much like to hear that there is a flaw in this logic. If so,
where is it?
In my understanding, Alice must not have used the GPL'ed software
in her design and testing.
Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
The law considers intent, and ignores technical detail. If a person's
actions are clearly intended to make a copyright ineffective, and if
the copyright does in fact become ineffective, then the person has
violated the copyright.
Well, sometimes. The creators of
On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, John Cowan wrote:
The FSF takes the position that if you distribute software that can only be
run by linking it with something GPLed, your software is a derivative work of
the GPLed software even if you don't include any parts of it.
What if there were a non-GPL and a
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 15:39:23 -0500
From: John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
The law considers intent, and ignores technical detail. If a person's
actions are clearly intended to make a copyright ineffective, and if
the copyright does in fact become
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How To Break The GPL
"Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M." wrote:
1. The issue raised may be breach of the terms of a license
(Trent's GPL)
rather than a copyright infringement.
Ah, but then you raise this question: If the GPL is an ordinary
contrac
From: John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Says who? If she distributed a derivative work of GPL'ed software,
then it must be GPL'ed. The question is whether or not Alice has
a derivative work.
In my first scenario, Alice made a derivative work but didn't distribute
it. She then
On Fri, Mar 03, 2000 at 04:51:03PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
Ah, but then you raise this question: If the GPL is an ordinary
contract, where's the consideration?
There's lots of consideration:
-- fame from becoming well known as the author of a free software work
-- expectation that you
Justin Wells wrote:
-- fame from becoming well known as the author of a free software work
-- expectation that you will receive further copyrighted material in
return, from someone who contributed to your project (this is
explicitly mentioned as being of value in US title 17,
essage-
From: Ken Arromdee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 9:44 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How To Break The GPL
This basically sounds like "user does the link".
The FSF takes the position that if you distribute software that can only be
run by linkin
G'day all.
On Fri, Mar 03, 2000 at 10:45:47AM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
This is offered in the spirit of "How To Make Atomic Bombs", and does
*not* mean that the author approves of the conduct described herein.
[deletia]
Now who has violated Trent's copyright? Not Alice: she did not modify
This is probably the most legally controversial part of the GPL. It's
difficult to say whether or not a program which uses a library is a
derived work of that library. If I were a judge (and IANAL so this is
unlikely to say the least), I would probably decide on a case-by-case
basis.
What
On Fri, 03 Mar 2000, Forrest J. Cavalier III wrote: I would very much like to hear
that there is a flaw in this logic. If so,
where is it?
In my understanding, Alice must not have used the GPL'ed software
in her design and testing. It would be very hard to avoid this
in practice.
On Fri, 03 Mar 2000, Schilling, Richard wrote:
Generally, if the program Alice writes for Bob references *anything* in the
GPLed library, Bob's program could be considered a deriverative work. If
the program Alice write does not reference anything in the GPLed library,
there is no point in
On Fri, 03 Mar 2000, John Cowan wrote:
What if there were a non-GPL and a GPL implementation written to the same
interface definition? I don't want to drag in the *ix kernel here, but there must be
other cases.
For an excercise in creative but totally useless semantics, seek out and examine
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