Re: Choice-of-Venue is OK with the DFSG.
On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 05:26:22PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 10:29:45PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > Even though this is a tangent point, Free Software involves defending
> > > the rights of a user of Free Software. If the upstream author wants to
> > > protect and preserve their rights, they are interested in proprietary
> > > software, not Free Software.
> >
> > Protection against users not respecting the licence and reusing GPLed code in
> > proprietary software for example ?
>
> Enforcing copyright is entirely the job of the law and the courts, not
> Debian.
>
> If what you were trying to suggest is that the purpose of the GPL is to
> protect and preserve the original author's rights, then you're missing
> the point of the GPL. The primary purpose of the GPL is to protect the
> user: to ensure that he always receives the right and the ability to modify
> and redistribute the software. The author's rights are also protected,
> but that's because the author is also a user; just as other user's rights
> are protected and preserved by the GPL, so are his own.
>
> Protecting the rights of the original author is fine, until it infringes
> upon the rights of the user; at that point, the tradeoff needs to be
> carefully examined. "Don't claim that I endorse your use of this software"
> protects the author[1], and that's fine--it doesn't restrict users' rights,
> or put users in danger. "If you use this software, you must agree to never
> sue me for any reason" protects the author, and it's not acceptable at all,
> since it infringes upon the users' rights.
>
> "Any litigation related to this software will take place in New York" may
> protect the author, but can also be used by the copyright holders to harass
> users in the same way the author is trying to protect himself against. It's
> not at all clear that this is acceptable. If it's significant enough for
> the author to want protection, then surely putting every user (which
> includes other free software developers, reusing code or forking, who live
> in other parts of the world) at the same risk is a dubious trade.
Well, imagine the following case. I have contributed some code to the linux
kernel, if i want to sue SCO over it, i have to go to the US, and ruin myself
in lawyer and other such nonsense. This clearly mean that only the rich and
powerfull have the right to get their licence respected, isn't it ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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