> Mark Harrison wrote: >> Mac wrote: >>> You do have to hand it to Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and their >>> colleagues - the genius evident in GPLv3 just takes your breath away: > >> I'm no lawyer, but in the UK at least, there are at least two problems >> with the "legal analysis" here: >> >> - I had understood that a new contract / law could never apply >> retroactively. I believe that the same applies in the US. >> - I had understood that a contract could not be used to cause a party to >> commit a criminal offence. In the UK at least, such a contract term >> would be struck down by the courts (and usually, any contract would >> include a clause that explicitly said that if one part of the contract >> were found to be illegal, the rest still stood.) > > > As I understand it, GPLv3 is not a contract; it's a waiver of copyright > that passes to those who also waive copyright. This is what's so clever > about it - it just doesn't work like a contract or licence. I think > this is why patent/copyright lawyers have such trouble with it: it's > anti-matter!
This isn't accurate. The GPL is a license (hence the "L") by which (among other things) the licensor and copyright holder grants the licensee the right to use and redistribute the program subject to certain conditions. A license is a type of contract, in this case between the program maker and the user/redistributor. Matt -- Matthew East http://www.mdke.org/ -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
