Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

devever.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 202 posts

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#181

Post by Comevius »

badsectoracula wrote: post #166
Comevius wrote: post #35

I rather use Mozilla Public License 2.0, Eclipse Public License 2.0, or EUPL 1.2 for copyleft purposes. Strong copyleft as a concept has no legal reality. Linking a program to another don't produce a derivative work. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-l... FSF is full of baloney about how static or dynamic linking is different than communicating for example through sockets. To be able to use t…

The europa.eu articles (this is only one of them BTW) are about the case in EU where, indeed, copyleft goes only as far as MPL/LGPL/etc and of course EUPL - and note that this isn't 100% certain, it is just the most likely interpretation based on previous cases about interoperability. However this only valid for the EU itself. When software is not confined inside the EU, e.g. one (even a member of EU) cares about dis…

Google got away with distributing 11,000 lines of code from Oracle's proprietary Java implementation. It was considered fair use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....

The conditions you put in a software license must work within a legal framework. It appears that your license can't relicense my code, it only applies to your code. However linking or reproducing portions of your code for interoperability don't create a derivative work. This is of course not a legal advice.

FSF licenses are trying to take away rights from you that cannot be taken away.

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#182

Post by butlerm »

jarpadat wrote: post #94
Borealid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it difficult to imagine a situation in which you could use the library without copying the library. How would you obtain the code to execute it? Someone must distribute it to you, and/or you must copy it. Those are the governed actions. EDIT: note that the GPL broadly doesn't impose restrictions on interacting with a program over a network ("using" a server), which is why the AGPL exists.

So, one answer (not necessarily the right one!) to how you can use software without copying it is that "the license says you can". In other words the license definitely views "running" and "copying" as distinct, regardless of you, me, or federal law. The other, maybe more familiar idea to lawyers, and maybe more plausible to you, is the one in MAI v. Peak, that running is copying by definition. (The argument is based…

Congress has changed the law since MAI v. Peak specifically to allow users to create copies and adaptations of software programs as an essential step in running or utilizing the program in question on a machine, or for limited archival purposes (i.e. backups).

"Adaptation" is another name for "derivative work". So it would appear that it is not a copyright violation for an end user to load or dynamically link modules with incompatible licenses into ram, or statically link them together, or make binary modifications, as long as what they are doing is necessary to use the program.

It might still be a license violation of course, but it is probably a fruitless exercise to go after users who are exercising what are ordinarily considered to be well established rights necessary to use the software, the very thing that made MAI v. Peak an unfortunate ruling that Congress had to fix. Surely that sort of thing - even by third party technical support - should have been considered fair use from the beginning.

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#183

Post by hnfong »

tsimionescu wrote: post #25

> The userspace ABI is stable and intended not to cause anything targeting it to become a derived work. But once again, this seems to be a way in which the kernel project seems to think it has the power to interpret the GPL. In their minds, targeting the userspace ABI doesn't make a derived work, but writing a module does, unless it only targets GPL_ONLY symbols, in which case for some reason it isn't. I think this w…

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20031206211900.GA9034@thunk.org...

Theodore Ts'o (2003)

[Incidentally this issue is at the heart of Oracle v Google. I find it fascinating how the tech community in general seems to not realize these are the same things.]

Quote:

But that aside, does the Open Source community really want to push for the legal principal that just because you write an independent program which uses a particular API, the license infects across the interface? That's essentially interface copyrights, and if say the FSF were to file an amicus curiae brief support that particular legal principle in an kernel modules case, it's worthwhile to think about how Microsoft and Apple could use that case law to f*ck us over very badly.

It would mean that we would not be able to use Microsoft DLL's in programs like xine. It would mean that programs like Crossover office wouldn't work. It would mean that Apple could legally prohibit people from writing enhancements to MacOS (for example, how do all of the various extensions in Mac OS 9 work? They link into the operating system and modify its behaviour. If they are therefore a derived work of MacOS, then Apple could screw over all of the people who write system extensions of MacOS.)

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#184

Post by butlerm »

Jiro wrote: post #175
Borealid wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a copy of a copyrighted work (duplication) is one of the fundamental actions that usually requires a license. It is difficult to find a way to take another action with the work without first duplicating it.

If you otherwise have the rights to use it, duplicating it in order to use it may fall under fair use.

It is not just fair use, Congress has written an explicit exemption for copies and adaptations necessary to use a program on a machine into the law.

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#185

Post by tsimionescu »

hnfong wrote: post #171
butlerm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the FSF's idea of what a derivative work is largely something they made up with no basis in statutory law and which has never been tested in court. It basically consists of wishful thinking on their part. In the US, a derivative work has a legal definition in Title 17 of the United States Code, and anything that is purportedly a derivative work that doesn't clearly fall under the legal definition or est…

> has never been tested in court This used to be true, but arguably the GPL has been tested in court in the infamous Oracle v Google case. (Java is licensed under the GPL among other licenses) It looks like the Supreme Court said "sure... whatever, Fair Use, I guess". Are APIs copyrightable in general? God knows. But at least you have a case from a top court deciding that in some cases you can actually copy all the A…

I don't think Google v Oracle had anything to do with the GPL. The Java API is not licensed under the GPL, even if the main implementation, OpenJDK is. Alternate JDKs (Microsoft's old JDK, Visual J++, for a famous case) had to obtain special licenses from Sun and later Oracle, that included terms which are very different from the GPL (in particular, these JVMs had to be fully compatible with Java, you were not allowed to create a partially compatible JVM; and there were further restrictions on JVMs that targetted mobile/embedded devices).

The whole trial also stopped at the copyight-ability and fair-use grounds, it never looked at any license Google might have had (they didn't have any license to use the Java API, but the SC finally found that no license was needed, as even if the API may be copyrightable, Google's use would fall under fair use exemptions).

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#186

Post by tsimionescu »

butlerm wrote: post #182
jarpadat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, one answer (not necessarily the right one!) to how you can use software without copying it is that "the license says you can". In other words the license definitely views "running" and "copying" as distinct, regardless of you, me, or federal law. The other, maybe more familiar idea to lawyers, and maybe more plausible to you, is the one in MAI v. Peak, that running is copying by definition. (The argument is based…

Congress has changed the law since MAI v. Peak specifically to allow users to create copies and adaptations of software programs as an essential step in running or utilizing the program in question on a machine, or for limited archival purposes (i.e. backups). "Adaptation" is another name for "derivative work". So it would appear that it is not a copyright violation for an end user to load or dynamically link modules…

> Congress has changed the law since MAI v. Peak specifically to allow users to create copies and adaptations of software programs as an essential step in running or utilizing the program in question on a machine, or for limited archival purposes (i.e. backups).

That's not entirely true, as far as I understand. The rule that a user may copy the work to RAM as a fair-use exemption already existed at the time of MAI v Peak. However, it was found not to apply, since the person that loaded the program into memory was not MAI's client, but a Peak employee, who was fulfilling a separate contract with MAI's client, and who had never legally obtained a copy of the work from MAI (which would have entitled them to load it in memory themselves).

Basically, the court at the time found that if I have a copy of Windows from MS, I am allowed to copy it into memory and run it. But, a repairman I hire is not allowed to load my copy into memory and run it themselves, unless they also legally own a copy of Windows.

However, Congress did amend copyright law in light of MAI v Peak, to extend the existing fair use exemption for copying into RAM to people acting as service/repair contractors.

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#187

Post by trasz »

admax88qqq wrote: post #164
trasz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the readline was really libedit(3), a BSD equivalent with the same API/ABI? How is the app a derived work of readline then?

It wouldn't be? If the software was built for libedit then I'm sure that's fine. In the clisp case it was clearly built for libreadline, and trying to unbundle and repackage it differently doesn't erase that fact. What the courts will ask and what you need to ask yourself is, was the distribution model for a software done in a way to try to circumvent the spirit of the license? Law and contracts are not code. They ar…

Both libraries provide the same API and ABI. From application’s point of view there is no difference: it depends on the user’s choice which package is installed. Also, there is no intent to circumvent: it’s just that there are two implementations of the same thing, one GPL, one BSD.

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#188

Post by tsimionescu »

temac wrote: post #32
tsimionescu wrote: post #25

> The userspace ABI is stable and intended not to cause anything targeting it to become a derived work. But once again, this seems to be a way in which the kernel project seems to think it has the power to interpret the GPL. In their minds, targeting the userspace ABI doesn't make a derived work, but writing a module does, unless it only targets GPL_ONLY symbols, in which case for some reason it isn't. I think this w…

> I think this whole part applies as much to the text of the GPL itself as to the common Linux explanation. The GPL draws a distinction between dynamic linking, static linking, and use over a network or through a CLI style interface to decide if a work is a derived work of the GPL program. I just rechecked and it does not seem the GPLv2 does such things. I've not rechecked for v3, but from memory it does not do that…

I explained more in another comment, but you're right, I had some confusion. The GPL itself makes no such claims, but the FSF does; also, the LGPL directly implies that programs that dynamically link an LGPL library are derived works of that library, but makes an exemption from the normal GPL requirements for such programs.

Further, the FSF draws a distinction between linking (either statically or dynamically, which they believe makes your program a derivative work) and calling through a CLI or over a network (which they believe does not make your program a derivative work, except if the data structures exchanged through the CLI/network are complex enough).

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#189

Post by Dylan16807 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #146
Dylan16807 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm making a distinction between "user" in scare quotes and actual user . If you did nothing but buy it, hold it, and sell it on, you didn't use the product. If you integrated it and sold it on, you didn't use the product. Once you start actually using it, once it becomes a 'used product', selling it has no VAT and you cannot reclaim VAT. At least that's what google results told me. Were they wrong?

The whole point of VAT is that there is no such definition of "used product" or "end user". If you buy a book from a store, and have a receipt showing that you paid 1$ + 10 cents VAT, then you later sell the book to someone else for 2$, you owe the government 20 cents VAT on your sale - 10 cents which was already paid, so a total of 10 cents. The exact law may be more complicated (you may have to pay the full 20 cent…

Oh, I think this explains why I was being lied to: "There is VAT on second-hand goods if the seller is VAT registered. Generally, businesses are required to register for VAT with HMRC once their taxable turnover reaches a certain threshold, which for the tax year 2021/2022 is £85,000"

So normal people don't have to pay VAT when selling used things, but larger entities do.

Re: Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015)

#190

Post by belorn »

tsimionescu wrote: post #131
belorn wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's remove the license and just look at what copyright says in order to understand your example. You have some copyrighted work and you want to make copies, and you do not have a copyright license from the author of said work. It this legal? Answer is mostly going to be no, especially if you are going to sell the copies. Commercially exploiting someones else's copyrighted work without a license is very often illega…

The main point of my argument, and the main concern I feel with GPL-style licenses, is the notion of "do I have to distribute my work under the terms of the GPL even if I don't distribute any GPL code directly; in other words, when is my program a derived work of a GPL work?". If instead I am distributing GPL code directly, the question is more clear - as you say, copyright law makes few exceptions there. But again,…

"do I have to distribute my work under the terms of the GPL even if I don't distribute any GPL code directly"

That is an interesting question that have a handful court case in the US, however the result has gone both way. The primary example of that has been cheat software that injects into copyrighted games, which both goes again the copyright and EULA of the game. In the example of blizzard, there is cases when they won against the cheat software on copyright grounds, as you can read here: (https://massivelyop.com/2020/02/28/lawful-neutral-cheating-c...).

Basically, the art of work that get created when you run software is also a kind of copyrighted work, and a bit like how movie character is copyrighted as well as an actually movie itself. If a second company make a new movie with the same characters, story and so on, even if its all "original" code, it is still a derivative work. The article above describe those as "non-literal elements", the graphics, sounds, animations and characters produced by the literal code.

So to answer the question "when is my program a derived work of a GPL work", it would seem to be when the non-literal elements of the GPL is changed in ways that require copyright permissions by the GPL author.

It should be noted however that in practically all cases involving the linux kernel, companies that distribute non-gpl kernel modules are also distributing the kernel as part of products.

Post reply on HN