|
|
| FSF Seminar on The GPL and Legal Aspects of Free Software Development - Sept. 28 NYC |
 |
|
Tuesday, August 23 2005 @ 03:24 PM EDT
|
I've written often of my experience at the GPL seminar I attended a couple of years ago, and I've always been very glad I went. For those of you in the New York area, there will be a one-day course at Columbia Law School on September 28, "The GPL and Legal Aspects of Free Software Development":The course will comprise an exploration of the most widely used free software copyright license, the GNU GPL, and will give lawyers, software developers, managers and business people the knowledge necessary to use the GPL (and GPL'ed software) successfully, with safety and predictability, both in businesses new to free software and in existing enterprises. This one seems especially geared to those interested in license compliance, as well as those wishing to participate in the GPL3 process. I have to tell you that the food was great at the one I attended, and I learned a lot. There are more details here, including the news that Eben Moglen will talk about GPL3 at the luncheon. Here's some information I was sent just now: The nonprofit Free Software Foundation, in association with Columbia
Law School, is offering a one-day seminar on the GPL and Legal Aspects
of Free Software Development at Columbia Law School in New York City,
NY on Wednesday, September 28, 2005.
As the GPL continues to consolidate its position as the copyleft
license of choice, it becomes ever more important that lawyers,
executives, and engineers become knowledgeable of the license. The
Free Software Foundation will shortly be releasing a draft of GPLv3,
and is making available this legal seminar to help educate on the key
issues of software development and license compliance.
The seminar will be led by Daniel Ravicher, Senior Counsel to the FSF
and Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation; Eben Moglen,
General Counsel to the FSF and Executive Director of the Software
Freedom Law Center; and David Turner, the FSF's lead GPL Compliance
Engineer.
The cost per person is $500 if you register before September 1, or
$600 if you register after on or after September 1. Breakfast and
lunch will be provided. Further information about the course schedule,
and registration instructions, can be found at
http://www.fsf.org/donate/patron/nyc2005seminar.html.
One topic listed for the morning session sounds right up our alley, "3. How copyright law applies to software [45 minutes] - works vs ideas - exclusive rights under copyright law - derivative works and libraries." Yes, you get to ask questions. When I went, they had a special rate for students. I hope at least some of you can go. The more knowledgeable we are, the more effective we can be.
|
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 23 2005 @ 04:07 PM EDT |
| Don't forget the clickies. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: cshabazian on Tuesday, August 23 2005 @ 04:36 PM EDT |
| I say we get a fund together and send Darl to this ;-D [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: neals on Tuesday, August 23 2005 @ 04:38 PM EDT |
We've been asked to keep it all under
one non-anonymous ...[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Fractalman on Tuesday, August 23 2005 @ 05:03 PM EDT |
Don't forget to make clickable links and describe the content. Make it html
formated. Check preview.
Great sifi book -- free down loads of pdf,
theme is on topic for Groklaw folk: patents, IP, IA and adventure in the distant
future.
Accelerando by Charles Stross over
at amazon.com.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: overshoot on Tuesday, August 23 2005 @ 06:01 PM EDT |
| I really can't justify going, but I wish I could just so I could ask a
question:
What do I get from a EULA in exchange for all of the rights I sign
away by agreeing to it? Since it's a contract, presumably there is
something in it for me.
I was recently reading about the
ISS/Cisco/BlackHat fiasco, and I noticed that Cisco's case is predicated on the
terms of the EULA forbidding decompilation. I thought, "So don't agree to the
EULA. You've already bought the media, just load the files from there without
agreeing to the EULA. Problem solved."
Anyone care to hazard an answer? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 24 2005 @ 05:17 AM EDT |
Diffing GPL2 and GPL3 will highlight areas of weakness, or apparent weakness, in
GPL2. Care to wager if any legal eagles from Micros- er, a hostile proprietary
software company turn up to try to figure out points of attack?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Developer on Wednesday, August 24 2005 @ 10:15 AM EDT |
There is a big issue that causes lots of confusion about current GPL, namely
plug-ins. I've heard lots of such concerns in private discussions, but didn't
see much public discussions on it, so will try to start it here (why not? -
Groklaw is a good place to discuss IP legal issues).
Current GPL FAQ has quite harsh position about plug-ins, saying that any kind of
linking, including dynamic one, "forms a single program , which must be
treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins."; FAQ
states that fork is Ok though. This position causes lots of issues with other
products (including open-source ones; Apache is one of the examples). I want to
show that this approach is a) against the spirit of GPL; b) is not in the
wording of GPL, and is therefore very likely to be defeated in court; c) is
easily circumventable with malicious intent to become compliant with FAQ.
Before addressing these issues, I would like to note that technically FAQ is not
binding for GPL licensees. Need to note also that it is not only not binding for
licensees, most likely it is not useful to clarify position on GPL
of any licensor except for FSF itself; in other words, if GPL FAQ says something
is Ok, it doesn't mean that _all_ people who used GPL will agree with FSF's
interpretation of GPL, therefore licensee can be in trouble if he/she will rely
on anything except GPL itself (FSF GPL FAQ included).
Back to the plug-ins and issues.
a) 'dynamically-linked plug-ins are required to be GPL'ed for GPL program' is
against spirit of GPL. (Note: it is difficult to make rock-solid arguments here
- everybody has his/her own understanding of 'spirit', but I will try).
GPL spirit is pretty close to copyright concepts and principles, and above
position on dynamically-linked plug-ins doesn't fit it. Let's consider pretty
generic case: developer X is writing an SO/DLL plug-in for GPL'ed program; from
the point of view of copyright law, this work has nothing to do with original
GPL'ed program, as long as API plug-in has is not copyrighted. Even more
interesting situation arises when developer writes plug-in for non-GPL'ed
program and wants to use GPL'ed code inside - in this case API is for sure not
covered by GPL, and this situation is very clear. FSF seems to argue that at the
moment of dynamic linking a combined/derivative work arises; while it is
arguable per se, there is much more important issue - _when_ such a
combined/derivative work is formed (if any). In fact, it occurs on end-user
computer, on behalf of end-user, and it is end-user who decides to make such a
derivative work. Therefore the only person who can be in violation, is end-user
him/herself, but wait - the whole thing was about the freedom for end-users,
wasn't it? In any case, I cannot imagine FSF going after end-user in court.
b) position above is not in GPL wording, and any attempt to enforce it will
likely be defeated in court.
1. GPL itself doesn't have any refererences to works/processes and linking, so
the difference FSF puts in it's FAQ is unfounded.
2. From legal point of view, GPL restricts only distribution/publication. So
let's consider in more detail the following scenario. Big company Z has a
commercial product ZZ with published plug-in API (which is put into public
domain, for example), developer X decides to make an SO/DLL plug-in for it using
some GPL'ed code. This developer X publishes his/her own plug-in XX under GPL,
with all the source code, complying to all requirements of paragraphs
2 and 3 of GPL license. Then end-user Y, who bought commercial program ZZ,
downloads plug-in XX and runs program ZZ with it. GPL FAQ says it's illegal to
do so. But who is in violation of GPL here? Company Z? No way, they are not
bound by GPL in any way. Developer X? But he is compliant to all requirements of
GPL. End-user Y? But he/she doesn't copy/distribute the combined/derivative work
(even if it is formed as a result of dynamic linking, which is arguable),
modification can (again - arguably) occur, but mere use of modified work is not
prohibited by any GPL clause, and all other activities are not covered by GPL at
all. In the scenario above, all the parties are GPL-compliant, there is nobody
to sue (well, SCO guys could probably invent ways to sue both X and Y, and even
probably Z, but I really doubt they would prevail in court).
c) It's pretty easy to circumvent GPL FAQ requirement to make sure plug-in is
invoked in the context of the separate process. It's one-time work, with a
result of a compiler, that would take API header files and create 'stub' SO/DLL
that would merely transfer call data over any suitable IPC mechanism to the
fork'ed process, and back to the calling process (like, say, in fastCGI). If API
is clean and well-defined (and plug-in APIs usually are), such a 'stub' would
work in most cases - even without program or plug-in knowledge about it's
existence. 'Stub' can be GPL'ed, making the whole thing GPL FAQ compliant. The
only practical drawback is performance,
but if implemented properly, performance hit will be negligible at least for 99%
of the plug-ins. The only real drawback of this schema is that, as I've already
mentioned, GPL FAQ doesn't have any legal implications for non-FSF programs.
Bottom line: I would say that correct position on plug-in issue (that would fit
GPL and copyright law spirit, would be defendeable in court and wouldn't be
easily circumventable), is to say that plug-ins are Ok - as long as they don't
use copyrighted APIs.
Thanks for reading that long comment.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 25 2005 @ 04:34 PM EDT |
I am going and would be interested to meet up with others to discuss related
items.. maybe a dinner either on Tuesday night (the night before) or Wednesday
night?
Anyone interested?
Rob Schilperoort
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
