Re: [LAD] Impro-Visor created on sourceforge

On Friday 07 August 2009 06:51:08 Paul Davis wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Ralf Mardorf<ralf.mardorf@email-addr-hidden-dsl.net>
wrote:
> > Chris Cannam wrote:
> >> On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Raymond Martin<laseray@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
> >>> What possible counter-argument can there be left?
> >>
> >> http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/ (same guy you just cited, explaining
> >> why you're wrong)
> >>
> >>
> >> Chris
> >
> > "The claim that a GPL violation could lead to the forcing open of
> > proprietary code that has wrongfully included GPL'd components is simply
> > wrong."
>
> For emphasis, I just want to paste that sentence (and the following
> one) again for Raymond, with attribution:
>
> Eben Moglen, attorney for the FSF: "The claim that a GPL violation
> could lead to the forcing open of proprietary code that has wrongfully
> included GPL'd components is simply wrong. There is no provision in
> the Copyright Act to require distribution of infringing work on
> altered terms. "

That's nice, but I would like for someone to show me how this pertains to the
current line of discussion. The fact is that code does become GPL once you
mix it with other GPL code. Whether you choose to break the promise you
are making when you distribute it is another thing. That promise is something
that is made with the license automatically whenever the application is
distributed, just one thing a license can do that a contract would need a
bilateral agreement for.

Perhaps you should read that paragraph again in the context of how this
whole discussion came about. Known free software, with a history of being
free, distributed under the GPL with the source code in the past, was not
being distributed with the source code at a point by the very same people.
So where would the altered terms be if the binary was decompiled and source
distributed for the application under consideration?

The terms would be the same as they were in the past. Thus, there is
nothing stopping the distribution of the code regardless of how it is
obtained in this one particular case. It can be forced open in this case
because it would result in code that was intended to be under the GPL in
the first place, not some other license. There is a whole trail of evidence
that can easily show it was and is GPL. The code could hardly be considered
proprietary.

An extensive look at license vs. contract for the GPL is found in
Enforcing the GPL - http://www.sapnakumar.org/EnfGPL.pdf

Raymond

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Received on Fri Aug 7 16:15:03 2009