Open Source Ruling Confirms Enforceability of Dual-Licensing and Breach of GPL • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Source Ruling Confirms Enforceability of Dual-Licensing and Breach of GPL

#21

Post by chriswarbo » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 5:55 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #18

l1ambda wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the only pertinent clause would be in the GPL (the CDDL doesn't care), regarding if ZFS were a derivative work of Linux, which it plainly is not. All this "GPL and CDDL are incompatible!" is nonsense.

It is not nonsense, and Sun went out of its way to make sure that the CDDL and GPL are incompatible. So, all the ZFS on Linux users are okay until Oracle sees money in suing them.

The link above seems to say that that the GPLv3 is compatible.

Linux won't(/can't) be changing from GPLv2 any time soon though. I don't know about Sun's intentions.

Re: Open Source Ruling Confirms Enforceability of Dual-Licensing and Breach of GPL

#22

Post by chriswarbo » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 6:11 AM UTC

l1ambda wrote: post #12

chriswarbo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FSF and SFLC aren't "allowing wilfull violation"; they aren't the copyright owners of the Linux kernel, they just-so-happened to write some licensing terms (the GPLv2) which the Linux kernel authors decided to use of their own volition. If anyone's "allowing" something, it's the kernel developers. Keep in mind that (a) the FSF uses copyright assignment for many projects, which would put it in a legal position to…

And the only pertinent clause would be in the GPL (the CDDL doesn't care), regarding if ZFS were a derivative work of Linux, which it plainly is not. All this "GPL and CDDL are incompatible!" is nonsense.

From reading that link, especially the Torvalds quote, it seems like all Linux kernel modules have always counted as derivative works, although Torvalds once told the AFS devs that he wasn't sure in their particular case, and he personally didn't think that theirs was a derivative work.

That seems to strongly contradict your "it plainly is not" claim.

As for GPLv2/CDDL incompatibility being "nonsense", I suggest you re-read the above. They are incompatible. The questions are:

- How much do the kernel devs care? They're the only ones in a position to complain, since as you say it's the GPL on their code being violated. The answer seems to be "not much", since CDDL is "in the spirit" of the GPL.

- How much would the legal system care if a complaint was made? As that SFLC link says, probably "not much", since it seems hard to argue that much/any physical or economic damage has been done, or any malicious intent (again, it preserves the "spirit")

- How much do Canonical care about the damage of a possible complaint? Clearly not enough to stop them going ahead.

- How much do users care about Canonical's risk-taking? Most users probably don't care.

I can imagine some 'enterprise level' (potential) customers who may run at the sight of "potential lawsuit", despite the "potential" seeming to be low, and the fallout from such a lawsuit being pretty insignificant (as SFLC says, since there's no malicious intent, it would probably just require a switch to Debian's model going forward, which would cause a little disruption but no real damage)

Re: Open Source Ruling Confirms Enforceability of Dual-Licensing and Breach of GPL

#23

Post by maxlybbert » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 11:49 AM UTC

grabcocque wrote: post #7

bdonlan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, things don't become legal precedent until someone sues and a judge rules on it (and preferably the ruling is upheld on appeal). Second, what makes you think FSF/SLFC have standing to sue Canonical in this matter in the first place? Unless the rights of the FSF or SLFC themselves are infringed, they can't sue, even if they happen to have strong opinions on this matter. Either Oracle, some other OpenZFS contribu…

The FSF/SFLC who are the authors and therefore guardians of the GPL maintain, publicly, that Canonical is in violation of its license. And yet, no legal action, no cease and desist has been sent. In UK law, failure to enforce a claim or right is taken as reasonable assertion that the owner doesn't see the right as conscionable. For better or worse, the FSF/SFLC is risking, through inaction which allows Canonical off…

The FSF and SFLC have as much authority to sue people for infringing the kernel's copyright as I have: absolutely none. Only the copyright holders can do that. Likewise, I can't sue people for trespassing on my neighbor's property.

In the US, (1) you can't let an issue get bigger simply so you can claim more damages the way SCO tried; and (2) when there's a specific statute of limitations -- like there is with copyright -- courts are less likely to say somebody delayed filing suit for too long, unless they made statements about trying to make a record to qualify for more damages, the way SCO did.

In the US, it used to be possible to lose copyright if you failed to enforce it, but that hasn't been the case for decades.

Re: Open Source Ruling Confirms Enforceability of Dual-Licensing and Breach of GPL

#24

Post by davexunit » Mon, Sep 11, 2017, 11:19 PM UTC

grabcocque wrote: post #5

It's perhaps a moot point. Canonical have been distributing OpenZFS binaries for going on two years even though the FSF and the SFLC believe them to be in violation of the GPL. Angry blog posts doesn't cut it. The nature of law and precedent is that unless the FSF or SFLC sue Canonical Ltd. soonish for their distribution of OpenZFS Linux modules, their assertion that the GPL doesn't generally apply to kernel modules…

The SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) does not think it's a violation. The SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy) does. It's easy to get the two mixed up. IIRC it was the SFLC's judgement that it wasn't a violation that made Canonical confident in shipping OpenZFS with Ubuntu.