LawMeme LawMeme Yale Law School  
LawMeme
Search LawMeme [ Advanced Search ]
 
 
 
 
Not Closing GPL 'Loopholes'
Posted by Rebecca Bolin on Thursday, July 22 @ 13:02:12 EDT
Contributed by Anonymous
OpenSource
Anonymous writes "Clever ways to skirt the GPL have become a hot topic. The community is discussing whether a developer can revoke a customer's support subscription when the customer redistributes GPLed software. I have little to add to that debate, but I've drafted a paper suggesting one way the GPL could be modified to close this kind of loophole. The paper is entitled Collateral Restrictions and the GPL.

Comments (RB): The Slashdot discussion of Sveasoft is quite interesting; there seems to be a new worst offender for the GPL. Agreements to impose "any further restrictions" seem to run directly afoul of the quite well-written GPL, but this is clearly being tested in practice. New theories about what kind of restrictions don't quite make that definition seem to be sprouting up. Davidoff claims this clause is "restricting exercise of rights, not merely the rights themselves," and recommends a tweak to that effect.

Tweaking the GPL could cause all kinds of problems to software that does not incorporate future versions of the GPL. Though the FSF recommends licensing to future versions, many projects do not, including the Linux kernel itself which explicitly notes future versions do not apply. Unless there is a serious problem with the GPL (which I think this is not), it should not be touched. Also, what exactly is the difference between rights and exercise of rights in software? Probably not enough to change the GPL.

Thanks to Dave Price of University of Texas Law School for also adding to this debate."

 
Related Links
· More about OpenSource
· News by Rebecca Bolin


Most read story about OpenSource:
New Democrats: No Gov't $ to GPL Projects

Options

 Printer Friendly Page  Printer Friendly Page

 Send to a Friend  Send to a Friend

Threshold
  
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.

Temporality (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, July 22 @ 17:20:39 EDT
As long as we're closing the loophole, let's close it all the way. I think they argue that the GPL covers you for any present exercise of rights (e.g. forfeit your access fee to exercise them), and they want an ammendment to cover you vs. any future exercise of your rights, but it can't hurt to require that they not discriminate on the PAST exercise of their rights under the GPL, either.

Granted, the clause listed can be read as applying either forward or backward looking, but I would think it best to make it explicit that it matters not whether such exercise was in the past, present or future.

Even unambiguous language can be called into question by folks like SCO...


[ Reply to This ]


On: Collateral Restrictions and the GNU General Public License (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, July 22 @ 20:38:09 EDT
Good paper. It taught me many things I didn't know. However, I have a question:
The suggested add to paragraph Six: “You may not take any action to the detriment of any recipient based on that
recipient’s exercise of the rights granted herein.”

Does that mean that Company A (using GPL modded code) could not _ever_ , for any reason, revoke a Customer's license because that would cause detriment?

If that is the case, I would figure that no business in the business of licensing SW would want to use GPL SW.

Comments or clarification? thx


[ Reply to This ]


Leges humanae nascuntur, vivunt, moriuntur
Human laws are born, live, and die

Contributors retain copyright interests in all stories, comments and submissions.
The PHP-Nuke engine on which LawMeme runs is copyright by PHP-Nuke, and is freely available under the GNU GPL.
Everything else is copyright copyright 2002-04 by the Information Society Project.

This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions
set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later.
The latest version is currently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/.

You can syndicate our news with backend.php



Page Generation: 0.603 Seconds