Bruce Perens wrote: > Despite the fact that Larry and those law review folks are sure about > the linking question, every party who would benefit from a case going > according to Larry's interpretation has settled their case with the GPL > licensor rather than invest what is necessary for a court to make a > determination.
This is misleading. AFAIK, every case that has been brought about the GPL to-date has alleged the simple failure to include a copy of the GPL license and the source code of the GPL software with the distribution. NOBODY has ever alleged in court that merely linking to a GPL program creates a derivative work requiring the disclosure of the linking code. NOBODY has ever settled such a case such that their code must be released. Pure FUD. /Larry > -----Original Message----- > From: license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org [mailto:license-discuss- > boun...@opensource.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Perens > Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 9:44 PM > To: license-discuss@opensource.org > Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 > from OSI process > > On 03/01/2012 09:09 PM, Chris Travers wrote: > > You seem to say "do not link" and thus repeat more or less what the > > FSF says (and what Rosen spends a good time arguing against in his > > book, and he is by no means alone--- at least in any law review > > articles I have been able to find and read the overall trend is > > overwhelmingly against seeing linking as having much to do with > > derivation). > My goal isn't to help my customers win after they're sued, it's to > prevent them from ever being in a lawsuit at all. And you do that by > staying away from some issues. > > Despite the fact that Larry and those law review folks are sure about > the linking question, every party who would benefit from a case going > according to Larry's interpretation has settled their case with the GPL > licensor rather than invest what is necessary for a court to make a > determination. > > So, what do you do? You stay away from that issue and arrive at an > engineering solution that avoids it. > > which seems to be a fools errand: giving an engineering answer to a > > legal question. > Only a fool's errand if the engineer doesn't have good legal support, > or if the lawyer isn't able to work with engineers. I address that a > little differently, by acting as a consulting engineer who works for > the attorney and has experience in this particular sort of case. > > My sense (as a non-lawyer) is that communications from a project are > > very much likely to affect the scope of the license, and that > > downstream developers are likely to be able to reasonably rely on > > communications from a project that some practices are safe in their > eyes. > About the worst thing engineers can do is attempt to make legal > determinations without proper counsel and the necessary training. They > invariably get it wrong and they can be made to look really stupid in > court by a competent expert witness. Relying on what they say about > legal issues of their own projects would be ill-advised. Instead, learn > how to engineer around the gray areas. > > Thanks > > Bruce _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss