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I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

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Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#541

Post by bluGill »

ahtihn wrote: post #507
bluGill wrote: post #30

At least he got a response. Meaning the address didn't change mostly. A few years back I worked on an embedded linux project. For our first "alpha" release one of the testers read through the license agreement (as opposed to scrolling past all that legalese like most people do) and found the address to write to to get all the GPL source, he then send a letter to the address and it was returned to sender, invalid addr…

> court won't force releasing our code when a "rouge employee" manages to violate the license. Is this an actual, real risk? Has a court ever forced anyone to release their code because they were violating the GPL? My understanding is that this is not how this works. If you violate the license you simply don't have a valid one and basically committing copyright infringement. The punishment for that isn't being forced…

Not that I'm aware of. NEXT however did release objective-C source code, but AFAIK that never went to court (anyone able to find those details - I can't find them now).

The text of the GPL is release source code. There are a few people who want release source code to be the only way out of any infringement. If a company intentionally violates the GPL that starts to look like a reasonable argument to courts. However if a company takes "enough" effort to not infringe and does anyway a smaller penalty would apply.

If you don't have a license and distributed software, then that is a copyright violation and the author is entitled to damages. Exactly what those are is something the court figures out. However one important piece of evidence is the license was release your source code. Thus lawyers want that additional cover of we knew and decided not to use GPL code, and there are the steps we took to ensure we didn't: since we took effort you shouldn't apply that extreme penalty.

I do know that good faith in other areas has made a difference. Companies have been caught bribing foreign officials before - which is a shut down the company level event (many countries have laws that if you bribe a government anywhere, not just in their country). However because the company could show they made good faith efforts to ensure everyone knew not to bribe this was just the act of a rouge employee.

How real is it? Hard to say. Good lawyers will tell you that putting in some effort to ensure you don't infringe is cheap protection even if the risk is low.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#542

Post by Aardwolf »

dsr_ wrote: post #13
diggan wrote: post #4

> The first thing that came to attention, the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm. I completely forgot that the US, Canada, and a few other countries don’t follow the standard international paper sizes, even though I had written about it earlier. I guess I shouldn't be surp…

Nearly everything in the US uses letter, legal (letter but longer), or tabloid (double width letter, to be folded over). Much to my surprise, a random check of a US-based office supply company shows that they do have A4 in stock -- at a price about 40% higher than letter-sized.

> legal (letter but longer)

Why are two slightly different standards needed? Does legal really need to print "just a little bit more" text than others? If so, why not just use that one for everything?

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#543

Post by adastra22 »

immibis wrote: post #535
pabs3 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incorrect, the GPLv2 requires that you be able to modify the code, build it, reinstall the binary and run the modified binary. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

This relies on a court's interpretation. GPLv3 made it explicit that the user has to be provided with everything they need to install modified software. GPLv2 just says "scripts used to control installation" which can be easily interpreted to exclude private signing keys. And the LGPLv2 says when an executable statically links to the library the user must be able to produce a modified executable - nothing at all abou…

That is an overly obtuse interpretation. Real law doesn’t work that way. Get in front of a court and the bench judge will shut down that kind of analysis real fast. The intended interpretation is quite clear in context.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#544

Post by [deleted] »

swores wrote: post #534
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed at least one other country that uses “US” paper sizes.

Thanks for such an enlightening comment in which you were too lazy to write a 13th word naming the country you were thinking of. For anyone else curious as I was: Mexico is the 4th country, and I don't believe there are any others (but I could be wrong).

[deleted]

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#545

Post by loloquwowndueo »

swores wrote: post #534
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed at least one other country that uses “US” paper sizes.

Thanks for such an enlightening comment in which you were too lazy to write a 13th word naming the country you were thinking of. For anyone else curious as I was: Mexico is the 4th country, and I don't believe there are any others (but I could be wrong).

There are more Letter countries than just those four. Nicely covered with the “I could be wrong” though.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#546

Post by adastra22 »

Brybry wrote: post #511
Symbiote wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had difficulty writing an address on an envelope. This skill is something we expect of 8 year old children.

I sympathize strongly with the author. I write with a pen so infrequently ( years between handwriting) that I often have handwriting errors that displease me. So I usually do some practice writing on scratch paper before attempting the final version. Notice he said "printing the address would have taken less time". That doesn't sound like the issue was formatting or knowledge. It reads to me as the physical skill of…

How is that possible? I write things literally every day. Everyone I know does so. How do you go a literal year without picking up a pen?

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#547

Post by swores »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #545
swores wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for such an enlightening comment in which you were too lazy to write a 13th word naming the country you were thinking of. For anyone else curious as I was: Mexico is the 4th country, and I don't believe there are any others (but I could be wrong).

There are more Letter countries than just those four. Nicely covered with the “I could be wrong” though.

Last time I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you at least thought your comment was worth posting, now I assume you're just a troll and am blocking so I won't see your comments again.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#548

Post by tialaramex »

db48x wrote: post #517
tialaramex wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the paper, the stuff on the paper scales the same. Want a large poster and then also handbills to give out? They're identical. Got 15 full size sheets of colour information but now want to turn it into a pocket handout ? No problem, it's the same thing but smaller. This feels obvious - of course it works like that, until your paper sizes aren't using this ratio (which the US ones don't) and then the frustration i…

Here in the US we just print posters at whatever size we want. We don’t have to rely on someone to have standardized the sizes of posters. Large–format printers often go up to eight feet wide, so you can print something as big as a wall if you want (and as long as you like, because they print on a _roll_ of paper instead of a sheet). Computers have made elegant ratios irrelevant. But if you really think it’s importan…

> But if you really think it’s important, then you can consider a series of sizes like tabloid, letter, and memo to be equivalent to A3, A4, and A5.

This seems like you entirely missed the thread? The whole point is that this actually works for the A-series and in your made up US series it can't work because the ratio is wrong.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#549

Post by adastra22 »

Suppafly wrote: post #254
programjames wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone born in 2003, I did this just last week when filing my tax returns.

>As someone born in 2003, I did this just last week when filing my tax returns. Why didn't you efile like a normal person? The only time you need to do it the hard way is if you are under 16 and filing for the first time.

There is a lot of stuff that can make you ineligible for efiling.anything exceptional and not handled by the standard form requires efiling. They only just recently dropped the requirement for 83(b) elections to be sent in with your tax return, and until then I had to send in a paper return every time I did that.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#550

Post by adastra22 »

Symbiote wrote: post #504
petesergeant wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But why are they mailing letters? I remember being 18 myself (a looong time ago), and having a helpful adult shocked that nobody had ever taught me how to write a check. I think I've written a total of 8 in my whole life now?

If a British 12 year old today were to need to write a cheque, I'd expect they would need to look up or be told how it's done. I wouldn't expect them to need to buy a pen first, or to need several attempts to write 10 words nearly.

You messed up typing nearly though.
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