rjack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Those SFLC advocates who make *self-serving* statements such as "the > GPL is enforceable" bear the burden of producing a U.S. court decision > demonstrating the same. It is not incumbent upon anyone to produce a > court decision that the GPL *is* unenforceable -- you can't logically > prove a negative.
Well, actually the GPL most certainly is _not_ enforceable: it is a license, not a contract. You are free to ignore it. Unfortunately, copyright law _is_ enforceable. So that's not an option you want to take. > SFLC lawyers keep filing the same rote, nonsensical claims in the S.D.N.Y. > Federal Court -- to wit: > > "14. Section 4 of the License states: > > You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except > as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to > copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will > automatically terminate your rights under this License. > > Therefore, under the License, any party that redistributes BusyBox in > a manner that does not comply with the terms of the License > immediately and automatically loses all rights granted under it. As > such, any rights Defendant may have had under the License to > redistribute BusyBox were automatically terminated the instant that > Defendant made non-compliant distribution of the In-fringing Product > or Firmware. Since that time, Defendant has had no right to distribute > BusyBox, or a modified version of BusyBox, under any circumstances or > conditions." > > > The SFLC's "automatic termination" claims are nonsense. Here's the law > of the S.D.N.Y. according to The United Stastes Court of Appeals for > the Second Circuit: > > "New York law does not presume the rescission or abandonment of a > contract and the party asserting rescission or abandonment has the > burden of proving it". Graham v. James, 144 F.3d 229 (2d Cir. 1998) Of course you can't unilaterally rescind a contract. Except when the terms of termination are spelled out in the contract itself. But that's not even what happened here: this "termination term" is actually not necessary: of course you don't have permissions granted by the license without heeding the license terms. It is just made explicit. > Why file this nonsense crap, only to voluntarily dismiss time and time > again? Because it brings the defendants into compliance? > The SFLC will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER allow a Federal Court to review the > GPL license on the merits. They'll dismiss WITH PREJUDICE before > allowing a meaningful court review to occur. So far, the defendants have preferred not to go that far but rather come into compliance. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss