Kudos to Eben. :-) Alexandre Oliva wrote: > > On Jun 22, 2007, "Tomas Neme" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > The thing is, what matters in copyright and licencing matters is what > > the author of the code understands, no the licence's author, if > > ambiguous. And the kernel's rights holder is Linus. > > Since he didn't get copyright assignments, each contributor is the > copyright holder of her/his own contribution. And this means each > holder gets a say on how s/he understood GPLv2. > > IANAL, but I think if Linus' intended interpretation had been > clarified all the way from the beginning, he could have grounds to > claim that everyone else had implicitly accepted that reading by > contributing to the project. > > But since it was a decision made many years later, his clarification > on his reading of the license is in a way an additional permission > that affects only his own contributions; other authors are still > entitled to try to enforce their understanding of the legal terms of > the license, and they would have the spirit of the GPL and its > preamble on their side to guide the interpretation. Even if contract > law states something like, in adhesion contracts, the party who writes > the contract gives the other party the benefits of any ambiguity in > the writing, the GPL is not a contract, it's a license, and per > copyright law, licenses are to be interpreted restrictively. > > > Linus has the last word on it. > > In the sense that he can decide to remove all contributions from > dissenting authors, yes, he does. But he can't impose his more lax > interpretation upon other authors. Under copyright, it's the more > restrictive reading that prevails, in that any holder who understands > his rights are being trampled can enforce them. And since at least > one such author is vocal in his dissent, not even estoppel defenses > would apply. But IANAL. > > -- > Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ > FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ > Red Hat Compiler Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED], gcc.gnu.org} > Free Software Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED], gnu.org} > -
regards, alexander. -- "In Brazil, this is kind of contract/license is called a beneficial contract." -- www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg170987.html _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss