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




Here's an interview with the THE SUPREME GODHEAD with snippets on questions
like yours:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/01/1052216&mode=thread

Bruce Perens: A more common problem is dynamic libraries that are
distributed separately from the executable. You say that a court would hold
those to be devices explicitly used to circumvent the license restrictions,
but that's rather chancy, and no substitute for explicit language regarding
what is, and what isn't, considered a derived work in the GPL. 

RMS: We have no say in what is considered a derivative work. That is a
matter of copyright law, decided by courts. When copyright law holds that a
certain thing is not a derivative of our work, then our license for that
work does not apply to it. Whatever our licenses say, they are operative
only for works that are derivative of our code. 

A license can say that we will treat a certain kind of work as if it were
not derivative, even if the courts think it is. The Lesser GPL does this in
certain cases, in effect declining to use some of the power that the courts
would give us. But we cannot tell the courts to treat a certain kind of work
as if it were derivative, if the courts think it is not. 

I think we have a pretty good argument that nontrivial dynamic linking
creates a combined (i.e. derivative) work. I have an idea for how to change
the GPL to make it clearer and more certain, but I need to see if we can
work out the details in a way that our lawyer believes will really work. 

Bruce: There's also the problem of Application Service Providers, who make a
work available for people to use without distributing it, and thus would be
under no obligation to make the source code of their modifications
available. Do I have to see my GPL work abused that way as well? 

RMS: I too feel these servers are not playing fair with our community, but
this problem is very hard to solve. It is hard for a copyright-based license
to make a requirement for these servers that will really stick. The
difficulty is that they servers are not distributing the program, just
running it. So it is hard to make any conditions under copyright that affect
what they can do. 

I had an idea recently for an indirect method that might perhaps work. I'd
rather not talk about it until our lawyer figures out better whether it can
really do the job. 

Bruce: It seems there's a lot of new technology that the GPL isn't keeping
up with. 

RMS: You make it sound as if solving these problems were only a matter
working hard enough to change the GPL. But the GPL can only use copyright
law as it exists. The recent changes in US copyright law to "keep up" with
technology, in the DMCA, were commanded by the software privateers, and they
were designed to help them restrict away the users' freedom, not to help us
protect users' freedom. They allow copyright owners to restrict the mere
running of a program--but only if some sort of hard-to-bypass license
manager or access control enforces the restrictions. The freedom of free
software means that even if we did put such artificial restriction into a
program, the user could easily bypass them--and that's a good thing! But it
means that new legal power is not available for use for copyleft. 

The DMCA is a perfect example of the harm done when business dominates
government and society. One part of the law explicitly says that only
commercially significant activities are considered important (to legitimize
a program which is often used to bypass technological means of controlling
the users)--showing explicit prejudice against educational uses,
recreational uses, communitarian uses, military uses, and religious uses. 

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.

-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright: http://realmeasures.dyndns.org/cc

I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or distribution of
this incidentally recorded communication.  Original authorship should be
attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation might hold for
usual practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of
exclusive rights.

_______________________
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