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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

#191

Post by eridius »

sounds wrote: post #188
eridius wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big companies don't avoid GPL because it's "untested". Big companies avoid GPL because it's actually quite dangerous for them to use. GPLv2 only so far as if they accidentally taint their proprietary code with it, then they need to open up their code (which is bad enough). But GPLv3 is really fucking scary. As it was once put to me, if a single GPLv3 binary accidentally makes it onto the OS image for iOS, Apple would…

Can you point to actual statements by any company on "why we avoid the GPL?" Here is a great example of Google reversing course on the AGPL (when they reversed their decision to ban AGPL code from Google Code in Sep 2010): https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/google_on_open_sour... Apple also _still_ ships GPL code in macOS Sierra 10.12: http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/ People use GPL softw…

I'm not aware of public statements, I don't know why any big company would actually go on record as saying that. But what I described above is paraphrasing what I personally was told by a lawyer who worked for a big company.

Also, your own link shows that over time Apple has been shipping fewer and fewer GPL-licensed packages, and explicitly makes the case that Apple is trying to get rid of GPL-licensed software.

> People use GPL software, extensively.

People use all sorts of software. I have no idea why this statement is relevant to big companies shipping GPL software.

> Any use of GPL software is a compliment to the software authors.

I'm even more confused by the inclusion of this statement.

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

#192

Post by webmaven »

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.

"EULAs on a book" is basically the practice that the First Sale Doctrine is meant to curb. To wit:

"This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed of without the publisher's consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published."

from https://books.google.com/books?id=v-yrLmQNRvsC&pg=PR4 , but there are many other examples.

Many publishers really didn't like used bookstores and libraries making a single book available to many people over time, replacing the covers as necessary due to wear instead of buying new copies of the book.

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

#193

Post by kevindqc »

nolemurs wrote: post #187
smichel17 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts -- at least US ones -- generally treat digital signatures the same as physical ones. Not sure off hand whether clicking accept is the equivalent of signing if you don't type your name.

It's actually a bit of a misconception that signatures (digital or otherwise) have any particular legal significance. A contract just requires an agreement between some parties. Signatures only matter to the extent that they serve as proof of an agreement. You can't go into court and say "yes, I agreed to the contract, but I never signed it." That's a losing argument. You can , on the other hand, totally go into cour…

Interesting, thanks!

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

#195

Post by webmaven »

cryptarch wrote: post #47
empressplay wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one way is to engineer in obscure but reproducible behaviour, along the lines of A->B->C results in D. people who are likely to steal code are unlikely to audit it sufficiently to identify esoteric behaviour.

That's a good idea, very similar to map makers hiding small deficits to find copiers. That gets awfully close to DRM, though.

It's not DRM (or even "close to it"), it's a "canary trap", or a "barium meal test". The modern equivalents in images, audio files, ebooks, etc. are usually called watermarks, even though they aren't visible (so sometimes called an "invisible watermark"), and are used extensively (including by ebook publishers that don't use DRM).

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

#196

Post by pessimizer »

icebraining wrote: post #115
mark-r wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, thanks for the citation. I was basing my opinion on his well-known hate of proprietary software, and his desire to make all software free. Dual licensing works counter to that, because it allows someone to use GPL software without making their own derivative software available too.

Well, it's not "GPL software", it's software that's also distributed under the GPL. That's being freely distributed at all is a win compared to most commercial software. And in fact, it could be argued that it's better (for rms' goals) than MIT/BSD/etc, since the proprietary license will impose some restrictions on its usage by other proprietary vendors.

Definitely better, because it allows for GPLed forks, but not commercial ones (unless the copyright holder wants to compete with themselves.).

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

#197

Post by beagle3 »

rlpb wrote: post #142
bighi wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if for some reason some court rules the GPL invalid, doesn't it mean that the companies using the GPL'ed software are violating copyright? Because the GPL license is the only thing granting them the rights to use that intellectual property, right?

> ...doesn't it mean that the companies using the GPL'ed software are violating copyright? It may be a technical violation. This wouldn't in itself make any difference to anything, however. It would only matter if a court would then award damages to copyright holders as a consequence of the violation. A violation in civil law doesn't mean anything in practice except when damages are awarded (and only changes behaviou…

But copyright is different; See [0] under Statutory Damages.

EFF / Github should probable set up a "register copyright for this release" to make it easier for OS developers to use this feature of copyright law.

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

#198

Post by DannyBee »

mjw1007 wrote: post #116
DannyBee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The order says that iff what the plaintiff says is true , a contract probably exists :)

I see no justification for the arm of that 'iff' which is equivalent to "if what the plaintiff says is not true, then it is not the case that a contract probably exists".

Let's go to the decision:

    Defendant contends that Plaintiff’s reliance on
    the unsigned GNU GPL fails to plausibly demonstrate
    mutual assent, that is, the existence of a contract.
    Not so. The GNU GPL, which is attached to the
    complaint, provides that the Ghostscript user agrees
    to its terms if the user does not obtain a
    commercial license. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant
    used Ghostscript, did not obtain a commercial
    license, and represented publicly that its use of
    Ghostscript was licensed under the GNL GPU. These
    allegations sufficiently plead the existence of a
    contract. See, e.g., MedioStream, Inc. v. Microsoft
    Corp., 749 F. Supp. 2d 507, 519 (E.D. Tex. 2010)
    (concluding that the software owner had adequately
    pled a claim for breach of a shrink-wrap license).
Note the part that:

    Plaintiff alleges that Defendant
    used Ghostscript, did not obtain a commercial
    license, and represented publicly that its use of
    Ghostscript was licensed under the GNL GPU. These
    allegations sufficiently plead the existence of a
    contract."
IE if what the plaintiff said is true, it's a contract.

I see nothing in the decision that says the court would have found a contract without these allegations being true.

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

geofft wrote: post #189
10165 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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. I think you're misunderstanding how copyright law views works. A "work" in the sense of copyright law isn't a pattern of bits: it's a creative expression of an idea (a binding between a pattern of bits and some concep…

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by eru »

lolc wrote: post #178
10165 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the "outcome" to which I was referring was in fact the effect of dual-licensing. With respect to the book chapter, as I interpret it, reciprocity includes asking for the licensee to open source their work. But I leave this to the experts to interpret definitively. Assuming I am not misunderstanding, if the licensee "reciprocates", then there is no closed source and the "problem" I am alluding to goes away. Becau…

You cannot have GPL-licensed code in closed-source code. It's a violation of the license so the code ceases to be GPL-licensed and becomes unlicensed. If you distribute that code, in source or binary form, you can get sued by the copyright holders which is what this case is about.

You can totally have GPL-licensed code in closed-source code as long as you don't publish it. So you can totally run your SaaS business like that.

The Affero GPL tries to close that loophole.

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