gpl backlash?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date:	Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:01:12 +0200 (CEST)
   From: Martin Konold <konold at alpha.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de>

   On 28 Jul 1999 bruce at perens.com wrote:

   > 1. If an alternate implementation from mine exists
   > 2. and is available for the user to run with your application on that platform
   > 3. and the user actually has to have it to run your application.
   > 
   > Postulate that you write an application that works with a library full of
   > no-op stubs. That library just happens to match the interface of a GPL-ed
   > product I've written, and with that library it is a functioning product. Then
   > you ship that application with the _intent_ that the user combine it with my
   > library to run it, which is demonstrated by the fact that it doesn't do useful
   > work any other way or you haven't shipped an alternative library to that same
   > user. I think I'd have a legitimate complaint.

   Bruce: Are you shure that "intent" has any legal meaning?

In U.S. law, ``intent'' has a legal meaning in a number of contexts.
For example, the difference between manslaughter and homicide is one
of intent.

I believe that in the copyright arena, intent goes by names such as
``contributory infringement.''

Ian