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Re: [ox-en] Re: Software as society (was: Re: Documentation Standards was Re: [ox-en] UserLinux)




LOL again.  If you take it to court and get a good solid court precedent,
then what has happened?  The GPL has helped bring the issue to bear and it
has been sorted out on the side of freedom. (Not, note, on the side of
disciplined practice that's necessary in the fight against those who would
use exclusive rights policy against freedom -- including those who take
advantage of the legal precedent this would establish, to help them make
so-called property out of algorithms.)  You'd win like the dilettantes who
screwed things up for those intense revolutionary cells all the time -- but
hey, you gotta play for freedom that way, I can't stop you and I very likely
(it appears) won't be able to convince you to cut that nonsense out.  Hee
hee.

The GPL is basically a stand-in for disciplined apparatus.  Freedom flows
out of the confrontation it presents.  It is pretty cool.  Few things are so
cool.  Try not to mess it up, though, okay?  :-)

Do you hear the humming in your head yet?  LOL

Seth

Niall Douglas wrote:

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On 14 Dec 2003 at 2:40, Seth Johnson wrote:

It's basically a dare:  "Go ahead; try to make a case against the GPL
on the basis of legal principle.  If you do, we'll just show how silly
the attempt is to apply those principles to software."  It will be
quite fun to watch, if and when it happens.

The first problem is that you can only do so much with copyright law
and the GPL + archaic book law create unintended consequences. For
example, if I compile a GPLed library into a DLL or other shared
object and link with my proprietary closed-source binary such that
none of the GPL code ends up in my proprietary binary, I think
there's a very valid case legally for saying that that's fine.

Now I personally see that as fine as no modification has been made to
the original GPLed code and no one loses by what has happened.
However, most GPL believers react with *horror* at such an idea
because everything GNU and the FSF have told them is that this is not
possible. Indeed, the FAQ for the GPL explicitly says this is not an
avenue available, though from what I have read of case law the
situation is far more fuzzy than that. With a good lawyer, you should
win such a contest and in the US, there is ample case law showing
that derivability ends at the API boundary (good question if this
also applies also to OO code though).

What I'm saying is that people who really really want to believe in
the GPL tend to think it's watertight. Many times I have read long
polemics about just how well the GPL was written, how any company
daring to breach it would suffer an immediate death and how it's 110%
legally watertight everywhere on the planet. Implicit in all this is
how wonderful RMS is, how clever he was in designing it so well, how
GPL software is superior to all other forms and basically why it will
take over the world.

The reality is far less watertight. A major fly in the ointment long
before the SCO problem was embedded device manufacturers sticking
copies of Linux onto their devices without providing the sources.
This is still unresolved. The GPL cult forget the major reason why
there hasn't been more GPL infractions on a larger scale - it's
because as yet, infringing GPLed software isn't worth company's time -
 yet. When that situation changes, as it surely will as GPLed
software becomes more useful, you'll start seeing mass infractions.

And then what will happen? Will the FSF sue everyone? They haven't
sued the manufacturers of those embedded Linuces yet. What happens to
the GPL and its effectiveness if everyone starts ignoring it,
especially powerful interests with a far bigger lobbying voice?
Especially as there is no one copyright holder for GPL software and
thus no one entity to make representations apart from the FSF.

The answer's obvious. The only sustainable long-term solution is
reform of copyright law - which irrespective of software, things like
the ever easier exchange of video, music and text is going to require
anyway.

Cheers,
Niall

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