'GPL encumbrance problems'

[John Summerfied]

David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud) wrote:

>>
>> Whether it impinges on someone else's rights depends on the licence 
>> (say SCO) grant to those doing the (re)implementation and the rights 
>> (say SCO) actually have. Copyright and a licence to copy are not quite 
>> the same.
> 
> 
> Copyright *LAW* is all I care about.  IANAL, but based on lots of 
> reading over at Groklaw, the applicable U.S. copyright law 

US law has no standing here, or in Europe....

>> If, on another hand, I grant you use under the terms of the GPL, then 
>> you are still free to write your software, but if you link your 
>> program with mine (isn't that what the headers are for?), then any 
>> distribution you do must be under the terms of the GPL, and you must 
>> (if asked) produce the source on demand.
> 
> 
> And if I distribute my software under a license of my choice and an end 
> user happens to substitute a GPLed library for the unencumbered 

What the user does re my rights is not your concern. However, if the 
user violates my rights, that is a concern to me.

> library(ies) I used in my development, it is not my problem.  Take it up 
> with the end user.  This is precisely why the [L]GPL cannot make viral 
> demands where options exist.  On the other hand, if someone scavenges 
> say the libraries underlying MySQL or Postgres (or any other significant 
> GPLed application) to build a competing product, they probably don't 

:-) Postgresql is _not_ your best example.

> have much of a legal leg to stand on.  Sounds like a good reason to make 
> sure any application I write is POSIX compliant.
> 

When I wrote before, I had in mind this:
http://cygwin.com/licensing.html

According to Red Hat, I can in fact take Postgresql and make changes to 
it and distribute only the resultant binaries, keeping my changes secret.

Whether I can build against Cygwin and distribute binaries-only is 
altogether another matter, and my best guess is I cannot. Possibly, I 
could distribute a bunch of object files for the client to link 
together, possibly with GPL-compliant cygwin I provide at the same time.


> 
> 
> See first comment.  There is also case law (at least in the U.S.) that 
> says reverse engineering a product falls under what is called "fair use" 
> even if the EULA forbids it.  Mind you, I can't just decompile and 

I believe our law explicitly allows reverse engineering, but I'd be 
cautions about copying a GPLed header as opposed to reengineering it. As 
I said before, your law doesn't apply here, and your precendents may be 
considered irrelevant to delibrations in our courts, even if the law is 
similar.



>>
>> Over the years I've come to the conclusion that my lawyer didn't 
>> really understand the situation.
> 
> 
> No argument here.  My experience is in developing large scale custom 
> software for paying customers.  If the customer is the government, they 
> get the source code but generally pay for revisions anyway.  Private 
> customers may or may not get the source code and, if they get it, may 
> have to treat it as copyrighted by my employer at the time.  I'm just 
> the guy who runs a chunk of the development effort.
> As to lawyers, you really need a copyright lawyer if things get ugly.  
> Its sort of like not going to a general practitioner for brain surgery.  
> It is very complex and very specialized.

On that we agree. In my case, the original development was for a 
government department. I had their agreement to further sell it, and 
Facom paid for further development which I did and which worked well 
enough for their immediate purposes, but it later transpired, not well 
enough for actual use:-)



-- 

Cheers
John

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