On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 11:20:51PM -0700, Michael K. Edwards wrote: Michael> Are you saying these people are on record in believing that the GPL Michael> "works" in the sense we are discussing -- forbidding the distribution, Michael> on terms other than the GPL's, of code that uses a GPL library (or Michael> other form of modular software component) through its published API? Michael> Can you provide URLs or other citations to back this up? Especially Michael> those that cite any actual law in support of their position?
Actually, no. I was under the impression you were saying Moglen was the only one to consider that the GPL worked at all. I was apparently mistaken, and you were only referring to the linking problem. Regarding that, Lessig does support it, in either The future of Ideas or Free culture. Rosen is skeptical about the FSF's position and seems not to endorse it. AFAIK, MacGowan and Samuelson haven't voiced an opinion on the question. The other two (belgian law professors) are pretty mich convinced, mostly by my own article on the subject. The reasoning is pretty simple. As Sean said, it is based on the understanding that the GPL is a contract. As such, it has to be interpreted in the light of the parties intent. For those cases where the FSF is the licensor, the FSF's intent is clear and well known. When intent is unknown, we have to refer to common practice. That means that one has to refer to the perception specialists in the relevant field (in this case, free software developpers) understand things. Insofar as it is commonly held that the GPL requires that programs linking to GPL'ed libraries be licensed under the GPL, that requirement is to be considered part of the contract. I shall stress that this reasoning is held in belgian law, and should be applicable in most legal systems based on civil law. I will not voice an opinion regarding common law systems. Michael> But no qualified source that I have yet found, other than those Michael> directly affiliated with the FSF, seems to be willing to endorse the Michael> "dynamic linking ban" any further than "well, the FSF makes these Michael> claims, and it's hard to tell what a court will think." I personally Michael> don't think it's very hard to tell what a US court will think (at Michael> least at the circuit court level and assuming competent lawyering) -- Michael> it's pretty clear from cases like Lotus and Lexmark that attempts to Michael> extend the copyright monopoly to forbid interoperation are frowned Michael> upon. As far as I can tell (I'm not a programmer), the "dynamic linking ban" has very few to do with the Lexmark case for instance. Not being able to use shared libraries does not, AFAIK, stop you from making interoperable software, at worse it hinders pure integration, not interoperability. Let's not forget that in the Lexmark case, Lexmark was trying to stop another manufacturer from making ink cartidges for it's printers *at all*. The dynamic linking ban does not stop you from making programs using the libraries in the slightest. It only puts *one* condition on it. Quite a different case. And even if you don't use the library, you can still make a program interoperable with the target system, "just" write your own functions and what will you. And if that is too hard/expensive, then maybe your program would have been a derivative of the library after all... But again, I might be wrong on this. Michael> It's particularly bad news when the legal monopoly is combined Michael> with market dominance in a given niche -- and there are a number of Michael> sectors in which the FSF and Microsoft have a near-total duopoly, and Michael> where neither demonstrates any qualms about leveraging its advantages Michael> to squeeze bit players out of neighboring niches. I'm not quite sure where you're going with your competition law references. There aren't that any areas I can think of in which I would say the FSF has significant market power. As to the OpenSSL case per se, it isn't clear enough for me to emit a judgement. -- Yorick Cool Chercheur au CRID Rempart de la Vierge, 5 B-5000 Namur Tel: + 32 (0)81 72 47 62 /+32 (0)81 51 37 75 Fax: + 32 (0)81 72 52 02
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