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A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

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Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#101

Post by AndrewKane »

apo wrote: post #12

To use Ghostscript for free, Hancom would have to adhere to its open-source license, the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GNU GPL requires that when you use GPL-licensed software to make some other software, the resulting software also has to be open-sourced with the same license if it’s released to the public. That means Hancom would have to open-source its entire suite of apps. Alternatively, Hancom could pay…

she was a waitress in a cocktail bar now she owns a jet... http://bit.ly/2jdTzrM

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#102

Post by dragonwriter »

sqeaky wrote: post #96
PeterisP wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shrink-wrap licences are unenforceable in many jurisdictions. However, GPL still works in such jurisdictions since if you claim that you don't accept GPL then you're violating the copyright law by distributing without a licence to do so. General shrink-wrap licences can't use this logic because (in those jurisdictions?) using software or service doesn't require a licence, unlike copying.

I am not a lawyer, but I don't think "Shrink-wrap License" is legal term. I am pretty sure contracts are valid regardless of the amount of copying and pasting used to make them. "Post-purchase agreements" are not enforceable in many jurisdictions because they add terms that one side of the agreement did not agree to and many terms of service fall into the post purchase agreement category. It is hard to argue that ope…

> I am not a lawyer, but I don't think "Shrink-wrap License" is legal term.

“shrink-wrap license” is a term (that has been used in legal writing on the subject, though it doesn't originate as legal jargon) for a license agreement included within the packaging (which historically was I usually shrink-wrapped, preventing the a customer from reviewing the license text prior a to purchase) of software product that is purported to be a condition of use of the software and which purports to be accepted by use, opening the package, or purchasing the product.

(“Click-wrap” has similarly been used for similar licenses included electronically with software that purports to be accepted by clicking through something in the install process.)

> It is hard to argue that open source licenses are "post-purchase agreement" because no purchase occurred.

Purchase may or may not occur with open source licenses; it may be true that it rarely occurs, though the FSF continues to promote sale of Free software as a viable thing.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#103

Post by jcranmer »

mikeash wrote: post #59
xorblurb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as an EULA attempting to limit your terms. Without a licence, you have no right at all.

That's not true. When was the last time you saw a EULA on a book or a CD? Software is not fundamentally different. I give you money, you give me a copy of the product, and then copyright law lets me use that copy within certain bounds.

Microsoft printed (not sure if it still does) its EULA on the actual physical software packages.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#104

Post by greenshackle2 »

blauditore wrote: post #54
boomboomsubban wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can imagine some (smaller) companies not being fully aware of open source license specifics and unknowingly running into a lawsuit This is not a real problem until there are licensing trolls, where their sole purpose is to make money off of breaches. If a company receives a lawsuit, they can claim ignorance and start to comply with the contract. This would change it into a minor breach of contract, where they woul…

> If a company receives a lawsuit, they can claim ignorance and start to comply with the contract. Are you sure claiming ignorance would make a difference? I tried to google it and found the Wikipedia article on "Ignorantia juris non excusat"[1], which claims that in most countries, not knowing a certain law provides no protection whatsoever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat

"Usually, whether a breach is material or minor is determined on a case by case basis, with the court using six different guidelines to make its determination. The six guidelines are

1) the extent to which the breaching party has already performed,

2) whether the breach was intentional, negligent or the result of an innocent mistake,

3) how certain it is that the breaching party will perform the rest of the contract,

4) how much of the benefit of the contract the non-breaching party has gotten despite the breach,

5) the extent to which the innocent party can be compensated and,

6) how difficult it would be on the breaching party if the court were to decide that the breach was material and that the innocent party was under no obligation to perform his side of the bargain. "[1]

See point 2. My understanding is that ignorance of the law is basically never an excuse, but ignorance of the facts, for contracts, could be[2].

For example, company X could argue they are ignorant of the fact that software Z is intellectual property of company Y, distributed under GPL. If they stop breaching once informed of that fact they can argue it was an innocent mistake.

But in this case Hancom was advertising that it was using the code under the GPL, so, they certainly can't claim ignorance.

[1]https://nationalparalegal.edu/public_documents/courseware_as...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistake_(contract_law)

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#105

Post by mikeash »

jcranmer wrote: post #103
mikeash wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. When was the last time you saw a EULA on a book or a CD? Software is not fundamentally different. I give you money, you give me a copy of the product, and then copyright law lets me use that copy within certain bounds.

Microsoft printed (not sure if it still does) its EULA on the actual physical software packages.

I mean that the legalities around software are not fundamentally different. The culture around software sales is different. Buy a music CD in a box, no EULA. Buy a software CD in a box, EULA. For no apparent reason.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#106

Post by iiv »

kevindqc wrote: post #90
ckastner wrote: post #9

> That happened when Hancom issued a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the company didn’t sign anything, so the license wasn’t a real contract. ... so they admitted to the court that they willfully used the software without a license to do so?

Nice! By that logic it means EULA are not enforceable! I just clicked Accept, I didn't sign anything! Or a cat could've clicked that Accept button, or a toddler

But EULA _are_ (generally) not enforcable. It obviously depends, sometimes it is and sometimes not. I know for example in Sweden EUla are not enforcable at all.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#107

Post by analog31 »

That means Hancom would have to open-source its entire suite of apps.

Ask HN: What if the vendor had structured their product in a way that GhostScript is its own stand-alone app. Would they still be obligated to release their entire code, or just the portion that uses GhostScript?

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#108

Post by [deleted] »

AndrewKane wrote: post #101
apo wrote: post #12

To use Ghostscript for free, Hancom would have to adhere to its open-source license, the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GNU GPL requires that when you use GPL-licensed software to make some other software, the resulting software also has to be open-sourced with the same license if it’s released to the public. That means Hancom would have to open-source its entire suite of apps. Alternatively, Hancom could pay…

she was a waitress in a cocktail bar now she owns a jet... http://bit.ly/2jdTzrM

[deleted]

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#109

Post by geofft »

10165 wrote: post #62
apo wrote: post #12

To use Ghostscript for free, Hancom would have to adhere to its open-source license, the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GNU GPL requires that when you use GPL-licensed software to make some other software, the resulting software also has to be open-sourced with the same license if it’s released to the public. That means Hancom would have to open-source its entire suite of apps. Alternatively, Hancom could pay…

Question: Is that what Stallman intended to accomplish with the GPL? Pay a fee for GPL source code and bypass the GPL? (I apologize for my ignorance here.) It seems like "reciprocity" has an even worse outcome than BSD source code. The origin of the source code can be completely hidden from the user. Do users deserve to know at least that the original source code was freely available ? What happens when users discove…

> It seems like "reciprocity" has an even worse outcome than BSD source code. The origin of the source code can be completely hidden from the user.

Nothing is stopping someone from paying the rights owner of a BSD-licensed work for the right to use it without preserving the copyright notice. The analysis is the same as for a GPL-licensed work.

If the argument is that it's better to have BSD-licensed works without paid exceptions than GPL-licensed works with paid exceptions, well... first off, nothing stops the paid exceptions from being "You can use this under the BSD license". Second, this seems like a strategic thing; if most users comply with the GPL, and you raise some money, that seems like a net win compared to everyone complying with the BSD and not providing source despite not paying.

> Assume further that they do not use "interfaces" designed by the GPL source code author.

I'm having a lot of trouble imagining a patch that works this way. If you're patching the program, aren't you interfacing with the program somehow?

I can think of two possible ways. One is that you're actually patching other interfaces (e.g., providing an LD_PRELOAD) provided by more-liberally-licensed software. I don't think that an LD_PRELOAD of POSIX interfaces intended for use with specific GPL software is a derivative work, but I also don't super look forward to convincing my lawyer of what's going on, let alone a judge.

The second is that you're running the program in such a way that you're really wrapping standard I/O and not touching the program itself, but I wouldn't call that a patch. JuiceSSH for Android does this with mosh, for instance; it uses an upstream mosh-client binary (and provides source) in a subprocess of its proprietary UI. On a system like iOS where you can't fork, I could imagine some scheme for running the process in the same address space with some serious emulation. I very much wouldn't look forward to litigating this; it sounds sorta like the VMware lawsuit, which is a huge mess.

If you're providing a plugin through a defined plugin interface, and the software author has said "Use of this plugin interface doesn't subject you to my program's license" (or the plugin interface is an external standard like VST), then you're in the clear. It's worth noting that Linux has an explicit statement that the syscall interface does not subject userspace programs to the GPL. I don't know if such a statement is necessary, but it's nice that it's there. But these sorts of things are definitely not what I think anyone would call a "patch".

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#110

Post by _jal »

StreamBright wrote: post #3
pvdebbe wrote: post #2

Excellent news.

Yeah few more contributions to GPL projects from companies or/and removing GPL code base from some products using GPL without contibuting back.

I see this attitude, but don't understand it. It seems based on a view that more software is always better, no matter how it comes in to being. But of course, attacking the legal constructs under which assumptions people create software means fewer people would create it in the first place. It is privileging parasites over the host.

And the attitude is almost always myopically limited to the GPL. Would you react the same way to a suit that substituted the infringement of Microsoft copyright? "Microsoft sued someone for infringing their copyright, so now I'm scared to link their code" doesn't pass the giggle test.

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