So that we don't wander too far astray, I wan to restate my questions: 1) Has John Doe violated copyright law? If so, what section? 2) Has John Doe violated the GPL? If so, what section?
On Nov 11, 2005, at 1:29 PM, AgentM wrote: > Don't you hear stories about GPL software getting swiped into a > different GPL project with the copyright notice changed and the > resulting chaos? No, I have not. But I'm not surprised that chaos ensued. Care to share any links to read up about it? > The GPL cannot subvert copyright law- it is build upon it, as > clearly stated. While I agree with you and have read the GPL, I'm not so clear on where anything states that the GPL builds upon copyright law. Can you point to a specific section in the GPL or elsewhere where it states that the GPL "builds upon copyright law" or something to that effect? > The licensor (copyright holder) must receive modifications. Where is that stated in the GPL or elsewhere? > If anyone can name himself the copyright holder, then the GPL is > useless. But John Doe is a copyright holder. He has modified the original source, which he is allowed to do under the GPL. Since he wrote those changes he is the owner of them and therefore can add his copyright. True, he does not reference (attribute) the original copyright holder, but then he isn't required to under the GPL. > For example, anyone could license Linux as closed-source > simply by swiping the copyright and relicensing, which is obviously > not the case. But John Doe is not swiping the copyright and relicensing. He's added his copyright and removed my copyright notice, which he's allowed to do under the GPL. Although he has change the copyright notice, he is keeping the license intact, which he's required to do under the GPL. But the previous paragraph is just my interpretation, which may be incorrect. > If anyone- even another GPL'd project- swipes GPL code and > reattributes the copyright to themselves and distributes- even under > the same terms of the original license- that is a copyright violation. That sounds plausible, but where is that stated? > I found out all this by searching with Google. I am not a lawyer, but > I am a software developer, so I informed myself. Are you saying "I found it on the Internet via Google, therefore it must be true"? :) Also, laws can change, are subject to interpretation, and can be struck down by courts. That's why I'm asking my questions. I'm also asking because as users, developers, educators, and advocates of FLOSS, we should all have at least a passing familiarity with the GPL, other FLOSS licenses, and copyright law. Regards, - Robert http://www.cwelug.org/downloads Help others get OpenSource software. Distribute FLOSS for Windows, Linux, *BSD, and MacOS X with BitTorrent _______________________________________________ CWE-LUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.cwelug.org/ http://www.cwelug.org/archives/ http://www.cwelug.org/mailinglist/
