That Notorious Suit (Slightly OT)

[Daniel Carrera]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 10:38:57PM +1100, Nathan Kelley wrote:

> >1) Within your scenario, you should also consider the *probability* of 
> >the GPL being found wanting.  This is an important point.  For 
> >example, I don't have a contingency plan in the event of meteor 
> >collisions.  But the probability of one happening is low enough that 
> >I'm not worried.
> 
> That is a debatable point. For every claim that the GnU General Public 
> License is bulletproof, I can probably find a counter-claim that, in 
> one user's words, "the GPL has holes you could drive a truck through". 
> Who's to say which is correct with genuine authority and independence?

Well, my point of view (that the GPL is safe) has over 20 years' worth of 
testing in the form of the fact that not a single GPL violator (and there have 
been several) has felt that the could win against the GPL in court, and so each 
one has preferred to settle the issues out of court.  If the GPL were weak, it 
seems likely that people would have taken advantage of that by now.

Secondly, the only *expert* opinion I know of (Eben Moglen) is quite confident 
that the GPL is secure.

Now, I wasn't really comparint the probability of the GPL failing with that of a 
meteor impact.  That was just an example.  I'm just saying that probabilities 
should be considered.  The point is that not all posibilities are created 
equal.  This is a point that many people seem to miss (I'm not saying you did).

But yes, it's also wise to look at as many options as is feasible.


> I agree on that point. Those licenses are very unlike the GPL. But 
> there are many licenses out there, some of them close to the GPL in 
> fashion. Those could also be in the same boat as the LGPL, and claiming 
> that they have nothing to do with the Free Software Foundation might 
> not help down the track; if it walks like a duck and it talks like a 
> duck, after all...

In an ideal world, association with the FSF shouldn't matter.  A license is 
(should be) valid if it's language is clear and legal.  So if the GPL is 
valid/invalid, I would expect that similar licenses would be likely to be 
valid/invalid respectively.


> And of course, should the decision go the _other_ way, that being the 
> GPL has not been found wanting, a long-time claimed stumbling block to 
> adoption of GPL'd products would be diminished, or removed entirely. 
> The GPL's near relations would again also benefit.

I had never heard of this stumbling block (not to say that it wasn't there).
But I've never heard of someone not wanting to use a GPL product because they 
weren't sure if the license would stand in court.


> I agree on this point, too. Which raises the point that perhaps, were 
> the BSD license used for most open-source projects and were _that_ 
> license the one that IBM was backing, would this whole situation of 
> grander and grander claims by SCO each month or so not have come to 
> pass? For that matter, could the proceedings have moved quicker?

Ah... now I can't help but bring up a conspiracy theory...
Why is SCO doing this anyways?  Ultimately it's because either they, or their 
masters (if any) cannot grab GPL'd Linux, steal the great stuff, and break 
compatibility.  You know, embrace, steal, extend and lock-in.  The GPL is 
precisely what makes Linux such a strong competitor.  If Linux were BSD then 
everyone could just grab whatever improvements Linux made and extend them.  
Linux would be perpetually behind while certain companies get a free ride on the 
effort of thousands of volunteers.

If Linux were BSD there would be no suit, simply because there would be no 
competition.

Cheers,
-- 
Daniel Carrera    | OpenPGP KeyID: 9AF77A88
PhD grad student. | 
Mathematics Dept. | "To understand recursion, you must first
UMD, College Park | understand recursion".
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