Re: GPL and linking
On 5/11/05, Michael K. Edwards <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/11/05, Raul Miller <moth.debian@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course, a court case does not have to be argued that way.
> No, but if it's to have a prayer of winning, it has to be argued in
> terms of the law that is actually applicable, not as if the court were
> obliged to construe the GPL so that every word has meaning and then
> proceed directly to copyright law.
The law as written says that you do not have permission to copy
except as granted by a license. Thus the GPL's license grant
is not only applicable, it's the issue which is most likely to be
contested in such a case.
> > A judge can ignore issues which are not raised in court, and
> > will focus on issues which are raised and contested in court.
>
> A judge cannot ignore law which doesn't happen to be in one of the
> parties' briefs.
In principle, at least, the parties will not be contesting the law.
In principle, one party will be asserting that unlicensed copies are
being distributed, and will be asking for monetary compensation
for the resulting damages. The other party will be asserting that
the copies were licensed (or, perhaps, simply settling out of
court).
Of course, I did gloss over a number of other issues which you
would have to address in a real court case. For example, I didn't
say anything about how to determine damages for the case --
for that you'd probably have to put a value on development time
and show how the issue has cost you development time.
--
Raul
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