Re: GPL and Copyright Law (Was: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe)
On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 12:01:48PM -0800, Michael K. Edwards wrote:
> The end being achieved is a major factor in finding a "functional
> interface" for legal purposes.
We're in violent agreement, here.
> The GPL is indeed an offer of contract, but it ties standards of breach
> so closely to copyright infringement that there isn't much room to
> argue that non-infringing use still breaches the GPL.
True, but the distinction between what's infringing and what's not is
... sometimes subject to debate.
Anyways, as I understand it, the GPL was inspired by a case where the
author of a program (who just happened to be RMS) was not allowed to
read modified copies of his own work unless he signed a legal agreement
which limited his right to further distribute his work.
As a mechanism for releasing software for public use without exposing
authors to these kinds of risks (and, thus, encouraging increased computer
literacy), I think the GPL does a pretty good job.
> Canadian case law seems to be similar, and Canadian courts make
> careful use of US precedents in this area (such as the "abstraction -
> filtration - comparison" test of Computer Associates v. Altai). I'd
> be surprised if US and Canadian appeals courts were to reach seriously
> divergent conclusions on facts similar to, say, MySQL v. Progress
> Software.
The parties settled out of court.
In essence, the only thing the judge decided was that the issues worth
taking to trial. Given the lack of precident, that's hardly a surprising
decision.
So, yeah, a Canadian judge would likely decide the same way... but the
significant thing this says about the GPL is that it's something new.
--
Raul
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