Re: LGPL module linked with a GPL lib

[Jeff Licquia <licquia@debian.org>]

On Sat, 2005-07-30 at 03:55 -0700, Michael K. Edwards wrote:
> Let me try again.  Eben Moglen has a J. D. from Yale.  He has been
> admitted to the bar in New York and before the Supreme Court.  He has
> clerked in district court and for Justice Thurgood Marshall.  He has
> held a professorship of law and legal history at Columbia for over a
> decade.  He is not ignorant of the law.  It is my opinion that he
> knows damn well that there is no such thing as "copyright-based
> license" and never has been.
> 
> It's very useful as a propaganda device to make it appear that there
> is some rich vein of unmined law in this area, and therefore some
> difficulty in applying the mountain of case law relevant to any given
> fact pattern involving the GPL.  But the truth as I see it (and I am
> not alone) is that the GPL is a somewhat unconventionally drafted but
> otherwise completely routine contract of adhesion.  If this is in fact
> the truth, then many of the things that he, and other attorneys
> closely associated with the FSF, say in public about the GPL are
> untrue, perhaps even deliberately misleading.  That doesn't inspire my
> respect.
> 
> Is that a bald enough statement for you?

It is.  And, from my perspective, it completely destroys your
credibility.

It could be the case that everyone who disagrees with you whom you think
should know better has ulterior motives.  However, I think you need to
consider the possibility that you simply do not understand the subject
matter as well as you think you do.  That you stoop to character
assassination as a defense suggests that you are incapable of holding
such a low opinion of yourself.

I suggest that you may need to find yourself a more credible champion
for your position if you want us to accept it.