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| Authored by: tiger99 on Thursday, June 13 2013 @ 08:36 AM EDT |
| Surely they key thing here, for people like me who are not experts in law, is
that the GPL works because it is based on copyright law. That is all we really
need to know. Whether it involves a license or a contract is unimportant to the
users and creators of GPL software, but it will of course matter very much to
courts and lawyers. To the average person there does not seem to be very much
difference between a license and a contract, especially when you read a M$
EULA, which purports to take away rights that you automatically have in many
jurisdictions, in return for not even guaranteeing that the software will
work. That is one area where the difference between license and contract might
matter. In English courts there is the concept of "unfair contracts, and it
would be nice to class a EULA as a contract. The GPL is not like that. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 13 2013 @ 02:07 PM EDT |
PJ, you can believe what you like about me: I have been honest about who I am
and my motives in this discussion. No one is pretending or dissembling here but
you.
Also, you could perhaps "go on about all the ways I am wrong" only
with respect to US law, and even then I'm not so sure that the courts would
follow your reasoning entirely *even if they end up coming to the same
conclusions as you (in fact we both) do regarding federal vs. state
jurisdiction*. Also, I really don't know why you are harping on the
"verbal" aspect. It is as true for contracts as it is for permissions
or licence grants.
With respect to other common law jurisdictions I could go on about all the ways
you are wrong, but apparently, if I follow your logic, I shouldn't bother
because you clearly don't care about getting it right for any jurisdiction other
than the US.
Please note that I an NOT arguing about whether or not US state law applies to
the GPL. As I understand it, it clearly does NOT apply, at the very least, to
the grant of rights (or permission in American-speak) as that is preempted by US
federal copyright law. I'm not promoting the FUD you are so fearful of, and
quite frankly it is almost entirely irrelevant to the point I'm making. Your
implication that I am somehow anti-GPL is entirely false. You are simply
creating a straw-man here and not addressing the issue I have raised, which is
non-US law.
In other common law jurisdictions copyright licences are generally considered
"grants of rights" and "authorizations", not permissions.
This seems to me to be, in some cases, a crucial distinction. Generally
speaking, bare permissions can simply be revoked at the whim of the grantor,
whereas contracts, as you well know, can be somewhat more complicated animals to
get out of, especially well-publicized unilateral ones. This is critical for
the grantee or licensee who wishes to build on GPL code and release their own
derivative work. If the rights have been received by way of an enforceable
contract, then they cannot be simply rescinded at whim.
Let me repeat that: the only way I can safely rely on the GPL as the grantee or
licensee in a non-US common law jurisdiction is if I receive my grant of rights
by way of an enforceable contract, not a bare permission. I didn't see that
addressed anywhere in your 2003 article, which by the way, I read while I was a
software developer and before I began my legal education (and I admit, I have
not read again recently - so if you point me at a part of the article that deals
with this, I will happily stand corrected on this point). In other words at the
time I did not know enough to raise these issues, so your snide comments and
insinuations are, once again, irrelevant. Please lose the ad hominem and
consider that there is more to the world than US law, and that it is also very
important to those of us who do not live in the US and where the GPL works
differently because the laws are significantly different.
Perhaps you should also consider not jumping to conclusions and attacking your
guests who actually have something to contribute outside your domain of
expertise. Than again, given your history, I probably should have known better.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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