Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
>John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu> writes:
>
>> One might, and one might be right. Remember, the US legal system is
>> based in the Social Contract theory, where the Government is given powers
>> by the people, not vice-versa. This means that if there isn't a law
>> specifically granting the Government power, it has none.
>
>That's totally irrelevant. The question here is about just what the
>law in question does in fact prescribe. Everyone I assume agrees that
>the court should enforce the law that actually exists and enjoin the
>state from going beyond that. But we have great disagreement about
>just what the legal facts are.
It WAS irrelevant from the start, but that didn't stop you from bringing
it in. You brought in a flawed analogy. I called you on it. Civil !=
Criminal
>It's also incorrect: in most places in this country, the common law
>tradition continues, in which there is a great deal of powers held by
>the state which are not the subject of any legislation.
And everywhere there is, there's usually an appeals court that's busier
than a one-legged man in a soccer game.
>> Actually, you can. So long as the final result stays in the possession of
>> the person who did the linking, this is not a COPYright issue, but a
>> property right issue. This is the epitome of fair use. If fair use is
>> out, then the whole constitutional basis for copyright is suspect, because
>> of the "promote the arts and sciences" clause just before the grant of
>> monopoly (ie copyright).
>
>But the point here is that the linking is a part of a complex act, by
>many people, which sums to a copyright violation.
So now this is a RICO case?! Complex acts usually involve Enterprise
corruption, which again has a different standard of proof. Unless you can
prove bad acts by all in the chain, forget a civil action on this one...
>In different circumstances, each of those sub-acts might have been
>perfectly legal, but in combination, they are not.
So? This is civil stuff again: IT'S ALL LEGAL! It's just is it damaging?
And the answer here is no, because the only way that this chain may be
broken into illegal acts is to revoke someone's fair use right, which
isn't an option.
>For example: it's legal for me to hit the ENTER key on my computer.
>There is no law which prohibits it. But that doesn't mean that in
>every circumstance whatsoever I can hit the ENTER key with impunity:
>there are many contexts where hitting the ENTER key would be a most
>serious crime.
My only regret is that I cannot respond to this paragraph as I would truly
like. I just cannot figure out how to properly spell the sound of
derisive laughter. Have you switched sides and are trying a _Reductio ad
absurdam_?
>Linking is not necessarily copyright violation, but if combined with
>certain other acts, the whole thing, including all its parts, are an
>instance of illegal copying. The total combination would indeed have
>to be an act of copying, but it's quite irrelevant whether each and
>every piece is.
Is it an example of illegal copying? Where precisely in the law is the
intention of the issuer of a copyright? It is an example of requesting
that the end-user legally obtain something that the upstream may not
ethically provide. Sort of like...say...realplayer.deb. It was probably
the intent of the GPL implementors to prevent such a happening, but the
language allows it, probably because they are already pushing the
acceptable limitations of fair use. Compared with limiting fair use, the
advertising clause is trivial (you DID cry havoc on that part...).
>Thomas
>
--
There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million
keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare
would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true.
Who is John Galt? galt@inconnu.isu.edu, that's who!
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