Compatibility of the AFL with the GPL
Mark Rafn
dagon at dagon.net
Thu Mar 13 07:51:02 UTC 2003
On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:
> SCENARIO: Several faculty members at Prestigious University have created
> a marvelous new package that takes input from a keyboard and displays it
> on a monitor faster than any program ever has before. They decide to
> release it to the public under the name WhizBanger. The P.U. general
> counsel tells them to license it using the AFL. He registers, on behalf
> of the University, the trademark WhizBanger for "computer software that
> reads from a keyboard and displays on a monitor."
>
> Linus Torvalds learns about WhizBanger and he and his team decide to
> include WhizBanger in their new release of Linux. As usual, they
> release their new Linux, with full source code, under the GPL. The
> Debian project thinks the new release of Linux is wonderful. They
> include the modified Linux in their new distribution, also under the
> GPL.
By doing so, every distributor of Linux+WhizBanger violates the copyright
of a whole lot of contributors to the Linux kernel.
> Brian Behlendorf learns about WhizBanger and he convinces the Apache
> team to include WhizBanger in their new release of Apache. As usual,
> they release with full source code under the Apache license.
I'm less familiar with exact requirements of the Apache license. I don't
know if it's compatible with the APL.
> QUESTIONS:
>
> - Which of the parties identified above has a possible cause of
> action
> against any other party? [For the non-lawyers in the house,
> consider
> copyright law, patent law, contract law, business torts, and
> fraud.]
The readers of this list perhaps, for lost time over contorted examples.
You lost me after the first GPL violation (putting non-GPL-compatible code
in the Linux kernel).
> - Would anything be different if the AFL were more compatible with
> the GPL?
At least the first case would - it would be allowed to distribute a linux
kernel which included AFL-licensed code.
> I'm looking forward to your answers. :-)
In my case, you'll need to ask simpler questions. Sorry.
--
Mark Rafn dagon at dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/>
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