Wired Article on the GPL

[John Cowan]

Richard Watts wrote:

>  Suppose A gives me a piece of software, X, and agrees to licence it
> to me under the GPL. The GPL allows me to do a number of things, but,
> critically, section 3 requires me to distribute source code with my
> binaries - that's a consideration. It's clearly valuable.

Shaky.  It requires you to distribute source code only if you distribute
binaries.
 
> In which case I must distribute my modified source code
> back to him. This is consideration - it goes beyond a plain licence
> to do something: not only _can_ I distribute the source, I _must_ -
> and it's valuable, and the fact that it's contingent is entirely
> irrelevant - people make contingent contracts all the time.

But here the contingency is that the contractor do something else which
he is free to do or not do.  IANAL, as I have often said before, but
that smells funny to me.

>  As to contractability, a contract exists wherever both parties
> intend to bind themselves. The author clearly intends to bind himself,
> or he wouldn't've offered the GPL.

If the GPL really is an offer.  But if it is a bare license, then he is not
binding himself, but simply stating his permission.  You can rely on that
permission unless you know or should have known that it has been
revoked.

> The recipient can avoid binding
> himself by rejecting the GPL, but if he accepts, must accept the
> conditions of section (3), and we therefore have a contract.

As I posted before, I think this talk of "accepting" or "rejecting"
the GPL has no foundation.
 
>  I guess this depends on whether you've decided if there's
> consideration or not. Either way, if you exercise the permission to
> make object files,

To make *and distribute* object files.

> then don't distribute the source code with them
> under section 3, you're arguably in breach of something, and if it
> isn't contract, it must be copyright.

Indeed, it is infringement of copyright.  You are doing something that
a) is a right reserved to the copyright owner by law, and b) is not
covered by the permissions the owner has granted you.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)