Re: Linux and GPLv2

[Måns Rullgård <mru@inprovide.com>]

Sean Kellogg <skellogg@u.washington.edu> writes:

> On Sunday 13 March 2005 01:21 pm, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>> Well, there are a few that dislike v2 already, or at least some of the
>> more far-reaching interpretations of it.  Seeing as v3 will attempt to
>> extend its reach even further, I see it as inevitable that a fair
>> amount of people will have a word or two to say about it.
>
> Well, if you don't like the interpretation of what v2 says then take
> it to court.  No one holds a monopoly on the right to decide what it
> says, and only the court reviewing the GPL can determine what its
> terms actually mean, and only within the jurisdiction in which it
> sits.

It's also rather interesting how people, apparently without much
reflection, release code under terms, the interpretation of which is as
yet undefined.  Given the grayness of these legal areas, and the lack
of prior case-law, the outcome of a court case concerning the GPL
could be just about anything.

Although it is often the case, that the choice is between releasing
under terms that might be overthrown, or altered, by a court, and not
releasing at all, simply taking the statements from the FSF regarding
interpretations about the GPL, such as the GPL FAQ, at face value,
must be regarded as somewhat misguided.  Since this is the
interpretation the FSF would want to see, and wishes were possible,
they are quite unlikely to make any statements to the contrary.  At
the very least, someone contemplating releasing his code under the
GPL, should review some independent analysis of its terms, even if the
the GPL FAQ seems compelling.

We should certainly try to respect the wishes of the copyright holder,
wherever possible, but this is only an act of politeness, and not
necessarily something we are forced to do by law.  The situation gets
still more complicated when non-FSF authors use the GPL for their
work.  I find it somewhat difficult to believe that all the authors of
various little libraries would mind much if someone linked an
application with both their library and OpenSSL, for instance.  I was
myself not aware of these issues when I first started writing
software, and released some things under the GPL.  As soon as I
learned about the problems, I moved to other licenses.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com