[OT?] GPL v3 FUD, was For Approval: MLL (minimal library license)

[Richard Fontana]

Chris Travers wrote:
> I have seen a *lot* of concern about different aspects of the GPL v3
> from both lawyers and laymen.    A few of the concerns are:
> 1)  Inadvertent granting of patent license through internal
> distribution of software (i.e. if I work for company X and download a
> copy of the GCC, put it on a file share so other team members can use
> it, Company X may just have granted patent licenses for any patents
> that are covered in the GCC to all GCC users as my action seems to
> match the criteria for conveyance).

I'm afraid I don't understand this.  In GPLv3, as in other FOSS licenses
with patent license grant provisions, patent licenses are granted to
copyright licensees.  Within an organization, ignoring the possibility
of unconventional legal systems, there is no internal licensing going
on, because organizations are single persons.  GPLv3 does state
explicitly (even though it ought to be obvious) that licensees can be
organizations, and this was done in anticipation of concerns like this.

The whole point of using the term of art "conveying" in GPLv3 (or one
main point) was to avoid the problem of what you call internal
distribution being treated as GPL "distribution".  This is apparently
possible in some countries under GPLv2, even though the problem would
seem to be academic.  As with any issue in GPLv3, I can imagine ways in
which we could have made these points ever clearer (at the cost of
making the license twice or more as long and more complex), but the same
problems exist in other FOSS licenses in some form or other.

Moreover, the patent license of GPLv3 (I assume you're talking about
section 11, paragraph 3) is not granted by those who merely distribute
without modification, which seems to be the case in your gcc example
even if what you describe were "conveying", which it isn't.

> 2)  Applicability of 7(2) permissions removal requirements to BSDL
> files included verbatim.  The SFLC seems to think that this issue can
> safely be ignored (i.e. pretend that the BSDL gives you this right but
> just don't exercise it).  

You keep on mentioning this issue. I can only tell you that you are not
reading section 7 the way the drafters of it (one of whom was I)
intended it to be read, and the way in which the legislative history of
GPLv3 makes clear it ought to be read.  From a section 7 perspective,
the BSDL is not an "additional permission".  It's an additional
restriction, or a set of additional restrictions.  The additional
permissions section 7 speaks of are the sort found in, say, the gcc
language interface library exceptions, or in  LGPLv3.  I think I
understand the confusion, because (IINM) the FSF itself popularized the
term "permissive license" to describe such licenses as the 3-clause
BSDL.  Technically, however, the BSDL contains additional restrictions
in relation to the GPL, one of which is the preservation of the
(relatively permissive) license notice. There's no additional permission
that you can remove in the BSDL, because, even if you regard the
permissions inside BSDL as "additional" in relation to GPLv3 (though I
don't think this really matches the definition of "additional
permission" given in section 7), they are bound to and inseparable from
the license preservation requirement, which is an additional
restriction.  Moreover, section 7 is primarily intended to codify
existing practice under GPLv2, and there is no practice of purported
removal of permissions from original BSDL code incorporated into a GPL'd
work.