brainstorming

[Benjamin Rossen]

On Sunday 16 January 2005 23:09, you wrote:
> Quoting Hubert Feyrer (hubert at feyrer.de):
> 
> In the final analysis, I have come to think that mailing lists /
> newsgroups are hopeless, as forums to clarify licensing and legal
> issues, which is part of the reason for my knowledgebase.  Online fora 
> suffer a continuing influx of poorly informed / misinformed people,
> such that progress can never happen. 
> 
> 
> Recent examples of such misconceptions on the OSI mailing list include
> Benjamin Rossen at
> http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:9342:ojhlaihhiomgoinkflll
> 
> > The GPL is designed to force anyone making derivative works to keep
> > their software under GPL, and free according to the FSF definition. 
> 
> Of course, GPL lacks the power to "force" anyone.  The author of a
> derivative work who contravenes it in creating his work at worst is
> guilty of a tort (copyright infringement).  He can be ordered to cease 
> infringing, and in some cases to pay damages.  Under no circumstances
> could he be legally forced into any action concerning his own creation, 
> and he alone has sufficient legal title to specify terms of use for that
> creation.
> 

I make three comments in reply (for what they are worth): 

(1) Read the original and you shall see that most of what I wrote is comprised 
of questions. I am not trying to pose as an expert. I am asking people to 
clarify things for me, and to join me in brainstorming about leveraging the 
license into a stronger position so that the patent threat can be 
ameliorated. I do not know if it can be done... I am asking. Look at my own 
words in the same submission, where I wrote: 
"It is a question. I do not presume to know. I am looking for a legal opinion. 
I suppose I have put this question poorly, because many replies seem to 
address a detail here or there in my expression of this idea, and not the big 
picture I am addressing."  

(2) the GPL license was certainly designed to "prevent" free software from 
becoming closed. That is the nub of the issue with the GPL license. It is too 
restrictive. Whether it is enforceable and how successfully is another 
question. So, perhaps you are right and I should not have used the word 
"force" (although I still think that is what is was designed to do). 

(3) Finally, it is not really interesting whether I am right or wrong. 
Throughout my life I have been right about some things and wrong about 
others, right and judged to be wrong, wrong and judged to be right, and on 
and on. I am too old to care. 

A lot of the egregious idiocy that appears on these fora is comprised of the 
nearly universal tendency of people to concentrate on some little nit to pick 
in what another person has said (or suggsted, or asked about) and not address 
the big question. 

The only encouraging reply I have had in this forum came from Brian 
Behlendorf. Apparently he is looking at the big picture.  

Benjamin Rossen