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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

#121

Post by pksadiq »

roel_v wrote: post #38
rlpb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an enormous legal difference between shinkwrap licenses that limit your terms, and a license that grants you additional permissions . Your typical "EULA" is the former type. Copyleft licenses like the GNU GPL are the latter type. A typical "EULA" attempts to reduce your rights, without any further consideration from you (you'll have already paid for it, etc). If you disagree, the authors like to claim that y…

What are you talking about? There is no such distinction. The GPL derives its enforcability from the same principle EULA's do.

> The GPL derives its enforcability from the same principle EULA's do.

No. A user is not required to agree with GNU GPL license terms to merely install and use some software licensed under GNU GPL. GPL comes into scene only when some (re)distribution of the code/binary happens.

So, GNU GPL has not much to do with End User License Agreement because the end user never have to agree with GNU GPL unless he/she is going to add one or more link to the chain of users.

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

#122

Post by fmihaila »

Nursie wrote: post #111
fmihaila wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a derivative work, but selling derivatives of GPL-ed software is entirely legal and not forbidden by the GPL. Distributing binaries (regardless if for free or not) of GPL-derived software without distributing the source from which the binaries were derived (or without offering a reasonable way of getting the source on demand) is forbidden by the GPL. Moreover, the source of the derivative work must be offered u…

While that is true, as part of a derivative work, your users would have your source under GPL terms. Absolutely you can sell, but your can't restrict user rights

Agreed, I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

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

#123

Post by 10165 »

geofft wrote: post #109
10165 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pai…

Patching might operate by locating patterns in source files and editing the source files. Either deleting, changing existing text and/or adding new text. The patch files themselves might be considered nothing more than instructions on how to make edits.

It is true the patterns could be excerpts from the GPL work. But they need not be functional or even intelligible as anything other than as part of instructions, e.g., short strings of octal values representing characters, with wildcard characters interspersed.

Patching might even operate by only using line and column numbers. The patch itself in that case need not contain any text from the GPL work. It might be just an index into some file, a list of line numbers and columns and any new text to be inserted.

The point is that the process of patching need not necessarily reveal anything about the original GPL work. The editing could theroretically be done in such a way to make this separation.

Anyway, we have drifted from the original question which was , essentially, why do programmers not distribute instructions on how to modify GPL source code or additional source code that can be linked with GPL source separately from the GPL source code.

The reason I asked is because what I see is that original GPL source code is sometimes "hidden" in commercial products by virtue of being bundled with some "derivative work". To me this obscures the value of the original GPL source code in favor of the closed source derivative work, which may or may not be as valuable. NB The usage of the words value and valuable is purely subjective. Opinions may differ.

I am not sure I understand the comment about BSD licensing. Assume for example that the goal of the license is to require attribution, how does one avoid that requirement without changing the license? The licensor can opt not to enforce the license and may accept payment. But the license still requires what it says.

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

#124

Post by Nursie »

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…

I don't think your "Assume" clause buys you much. If it is a source patch it is a derivative work.

You can sell it, but it's still subject to GPL.

Distribution of binaries is a bit of a diversion here, and not a key issue - it dorsn't really matter if we're talking about C or python.

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

#125

Post by frabbit »

This is why if someone were the (usually) imaginary "Free Software zealot" that would like to prevent a private business from profiting off public work, it would be necessary for software not only to be under a Free license, but for the copyright assignment to be held by someone that agrees with said Free Software "zealot".

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

#126

Post by [deleted] »

scott_karana wrote: post #113
analog31 wrote: post #107

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?

As long as it's not linked to their binaries, invoking it separately is fine. I believe they might need to allow for others to download the source of Ghostscript whether modified or not, but that part isn't hard. :)

[deleted]

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

#127

Post by Nursie »

10165 wrote: post #123
geofft wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pai…

Patching might operate by locating patterns in source files and editing the source files. Either deleting, changing existing text and/or adding new text. The patch files themselves might be considered nothing more than instructions on how to make edits. It is true the patterns could be excerpts from the GPL work. But they need not be functional or even intelligible as anything other than as part of instructions, e.g.…

Your patch would be meaningless without the GPL code underneath, so is a derivative work and would therefore likely fall under the GPL.

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

#128

Post by saidajigumi »

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…

You are misinterpreting "reciprocity"; it has nothing to do with Artifex's dual-licensing arrangement. If you read the linked PDF, you'll find this:

Reciprocity means a mutual or cooperative interchange of favors or privileges. Something is reciprocal when it is performed, experienced, or felt by both sides. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition.)

The GPL license is reciprocal, because it is “performed, experienced, or felt” by both sides—the licensor and the licensees both use the GPL.

In non-legal terms, I'd put this as "the GPL allows you to redistribute in kind: by extending the offer the original licensor made to others." The "price" of redistribution is agreeing to public participation in the co-evolution of the software.

This is not to be confused with Artifex's offer to dual-license: you may either accept the terms of the GPL or purchase a commercial license. These two worlds do not interact other than Artifex, the copyright holder, uses its rights under copyright law to offer these two alternatives.

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

#129

Post by err4nt »

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…

Forgive my ignorance too - but I don't think the intended goal of the GPL is to allow you to dual-license, I think Stallman would (I'm guessing) not want people to license code as anything other than GPL, so I imagine he'd discourage paying for non-GPLed code.

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

#130

Post by bighi »

bluGill wrote: post #79
10165 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If someone fixes or adds something valuable to GPL source code and wants to charge for it, then why not just charge for the patch or the additional code? You can legally do this, but it will not be easy. You cannot distribute a binary in this way, if you do your patch becomes GPL so the first person who buys your patch can legally give it to everyone else. That means you have to sell the source code to your patch a…

As other people already said, intellectual property laws restrict not only the work itself, but also derivative works.

A patch is a derivative work, no matter how you try to dodge that part of the law. So it would still be violation of copyright.

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