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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

#221

Post by mrout »

10165 wrote: post #214
boomlinde wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stupid question: 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? Nothing stops anyone from charging for the GPL code in the first place.

True. But the idea I had in mind with this question was that there is often an initial free source of high value code and then someone may add an addtional amount of their own code that is by comparison far less valuable. The end user of the commercial product if it is closed source may not be able to see the extent of the contribution of that free portion to the value of the product as a whole. For lack of a better…

>The entrepreneur packages his skin together with the GPL licensed command line executable as a closed source commercial "product".

This violates the GPL. The skinned program is a derivative of the original software and must also be licensed to users under the GPL.

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

#222

Post by mrout »

eridius wrote: post #177
sounds wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, if only. To the first point: the GPL is not used nearly as much as it should be. Thus there's still a strong selection bias on court cases in general being about the GPL, since the GPL is not selected very often. (And there's a reason it is avoided: legal counsel to large companies frequently describe the GPL as "untested." This happens still today, which is frankly ridiculous in the light of all that the Softwar…

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…

This is blatant FUD. Using the GPL does not 'taint' anything and is not 'viral'.

>As it was once put to me, if a single GPLv3 binary accidentally makes it onto the OS image for iOS, Apple would then legally be required to release the master signing key to the whole world, completely destroying the whole security model of iOS and screwing everybody (not just Apple but also Apple's users who rely on that security).

Not at all true.

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

#223

Post by mrout »

icebraining wrote: post #10
cmdrfred wrote: post #7

I wonder if this applies to non copy left licenses as well.

Probably. In the previous case they mention, the license was the Artistic License, which isn't copyleft, and it was considered infringement.

AL is copyleft.

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

#224

Post by mrout »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #154

The GPL has such strong terms, I think there is good reason to avoid ever reading any GPL codebase. Tainting yourself may imperil any code you write for the rest of your lifetime. And to that end, I think github should place a large warning on any GPL repo before letting you see it, as well as delisting them from search results (or at least hiding the contents)

>The GPL has such strong terms, I think there is good reason to avoid ever reading any GPL codebase. Tainting yourself may imperil any code you write for the rest of your lifetime.

This is the most ridiculous FUD I've ever seen.

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

#225

Post by bdowling »

fourthark wrote: post #219
orbitingpluto wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if someone just happens to distribute the source code for Hancom Office before this is resolved in the courts, would he or she be in the free and clear?

A license can't affect the copyright of any other code. So Hancom is just in violation of the GPL and has lost its right to use Ghostscript; it's not automatically GPL'd.

This is correct. Without a license, Hancom is liable for copyright infringement of the Artifex code if it continues distributing its product. It will be forced to either buy a license or reform its product to use an alternative, but it won't be forced to release its source code.

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

#226

Post by bdowling »

qb45 wrote: post #144
Nursie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer to stupid question: Nothing is stopping you doing that. As it would be a derivative work, your users/customers would be entitled to your source and have distribution rights.

Your customers are only entitled to the source if you accepted the terms of the GPL and technically you can claim that you didn't accept them and that you simply distributed the derived work illegally. If your customers wanted the source, they would have to ask the original authors to sue you and have the court force you to accept the GPL post-factum. It's not clear how this would turn out because afaik such line of…

A court won't force people to comply with the terms of a license. If they don't comply, they just don't have a license and can be liable for copyright infringement. A court can then enjoin them from continuing to distribute the product, which may be incentive for them to reach an agreement on a commercial license or it might induce them to modify the product to not use the infringed code. And a court can force them to pay damages, which will be the cost of what a commercial license would have been. However a court won't force them to release their code under the terms of the GPL. Even if the GPL were a contract, which it's not, courts just don't order specific performance for breach of contract.

As you mention, though, some potential defendants will determine it's just cheaper to just disclose the modified code and walk away.

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

#227

Post by dTal »

tzs wrote: post #176
qb45 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be cynical: some call it "having an axe to grind". Why do research if you can just post something that seems to align with your cause and makes you happy? In all that we do at Quartz, we embrace openness: open source code, an open newsroom, and open access to the data behind our journalism.

> “Not so,” [yeah, I'm sure this is a literal quote from a court document] said Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in her order on the motion on April 25. That is in fact a literal quote from the court document: 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, pro…

>licensed under the GNL GPU.

The what?

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

#228

Post by rochellle »

cryptarch wrote: post #45
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.

What if the EULA applies to a software product you have bought for money and have received a copy of? If it does not include an EULA, are you not allowed to use it? Does the same hold for computer games with an EULA? Or does the existence of an an EULA hold your rights hostage until you agree to it?

For the most part a EULA is just a warranty voiding clause. No reverse engineering, no copying since, apart from selling bootleg copies, duplication enables reverse engineering.

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

#229

Post by bdhess »

tzs wrote: post #143
DannyBee wrote: post #33

This happened a few weeks ago. But it's just a ruling on a preliminary injunction motion. That is, it's not even a final decision of a court. So while interesting, it's incredibly early in the process. The same court could issue a ruling going the exact opposite way after trial. As someone else wrote, basically a court rule that a plaintiff alleged enough facts that, if those facts were true, would give rise to an en…

> This happened a few weeks ago. But it's just a ruling on a preliminary injunction motion. Is "preliminary injunction" the right terminology here? It sounds like it was a motion for dismissal. Anyway, it's appalling how often the press confuses pre-trial motions like this with substantive rulings on the issues of the case. ...and it is also, sadly, no surprise that they also think that this sets precedent. Why is it…

> ...and it is also, sadly, no surprise that they also think that this sets precedent. Why is it so hard for them to understand the difference between trial courts and appellate courts and which set precedent?

Trial courts also set precedent. It doesn't carry the same weight as appellate court precedent, but their rulings do have precedential value.

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

#230

Post by pas »

roel_v wrote: post #58
pas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, so when you buy a copy of a proprietary software, why don't you have to sign and/or agree to the EULA? Also, does the seller have to reimburse you if you decline the license (and of course return the copy)? So you pay for the copy but not for the license, and you got the license free if you paid for the copy, right? (But of course that license comes with a lot of restrictions, just like the GPL.) But the importa…

You usually have to agree to some EULA. It's part of the contract. Second q depends on whether you could have known what's in the EULA before you bought it. They're not separate things. There is no such thing as 'buying' and 'agreeing to a licence' or anything like that. A 'licence' is just a contract: party A pays $X to party B, in exchange for which party B lets party A copy its IP, under a given set of conditions.…

> FWIW, I did read a bunch of book like the ones I mentioned above when I was writing a paper on a EULA-related topic during my law degree, and as a result I don't make any blanket statements about the topic any more.

Thanks, that's a completely satisfactory answer. (It's the Feynman-style "it's complicated, and any analogizing just makes it incorrect, thus making the analogy (or simile) useless" answer.)

And okay, they're are not separate things, but this sort of problem seems like what SCOTUS spends long minutes discussing in oral arguments. Because they are indeed separate things, one is a (physical or digital) copy and one is a grant of IP rights. At least't that's how I use the word. At least that's the piece of abstract thing that's necessary to make the copy non-infringing, right?

But, then, it comes down to good or bad faith of the seller. If the seller/vendor does not disclose the exact terms, but gives you the impression that after paying you you can use said copy for such and such purpose, that's seems to be 'false advertising'.

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