Compatibility of the AFL with the GPL

[Mark Rafn]

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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