Re: [ox-en] Does the GPL imply exchange?
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 01:03:55 +0100
Hi Kermit and all!
I'll answer without reading the whole thread so I may duplicate some
things.
Yesterday Kermit Snelson wrote:
Thanks for your great reply to my post.
:-)
Yes, it's an interesting discussion :-) .
You're only forced to release your patches if you release
the whole derivative work.
Exactly. The GPL implies a forced exchange in the case of derivative works,
which was my point.
No, it's still not an exchange.
The GPL forces you to release the source to the people you give your
derivative work to. They shall receive the same rights as you do. That
does not imply you need to publish your work to the general public -
not even to the people you have got the original source from. For a
real *exchange* however, the people doing the original work need to
get something back. This may be the case, but it doesn't need to.
So I'd say, all the GPL enforces is a flow of source code bound to the
flow of the software in any form. In FSF reading this means to enforce
a flow of freedom.
All I'm really saying here is that the GPL is an application of copyright
law.
Sure it is. The funny thing is, it uses copyright law to turn it
against the idea of copyright.
Stallman emphasizes that point all the time. My own point is simply
the obvious one that copyright law depends on state force, and that the GPL
consequently does too.
Yes, because the GPL has been created in a world full of states. What
do you expect? In a GPL society the GPL will be superfluous - but
until then it's needed to support freedom against those who want to
privatize it away.
In fact, I think the FSF's definition of "derivative work" is the
Achilles heel of the GPL. Even assuming that their interpretation
of this legal term of art would hold up in a court of law (and as
far as I know, it's never been tested)
AFAIK: No. However, the reason for this is, that lawyers when
confronted with the GPL they recommend their clients to not take the
risk of loosing the lawsuit. Actually the FSF *does* ask corporations
to stop violating the GPL.
So far, yes. But it's only a matter of time before somebody will decide to
test the FSF's definition of "derivative work" in court.
Well, after all there are nearly 20 years now nobody tried it. Does
that mean something?
I don't think it's
obvious that it will hold up. If a court strikes it down as unenforceable,
that's the end of the GPL.
And even if so: I don't think that'll kill the Free Software movement.
The Free Software movement today is far to strong to simply get
killed.
You're right of course, but there are two points. First, the GPL has
been created at a time where things were much simpler. Even dynamic
libraries did not exist in most Unix systems of that time. Second,
that cases are complicated does not make them undecidable in the field
of law. After all there is a difference between computers and humans
;-).
I think your first point supports my argument. The enforceability of the
GPL depends on being able to tell whether the code in question calls GPLed
code. Back in the days when there were only procedural languages and static
linking, and configuration management was simply a matter putting files in
directories, that was fairly easy. Now it's not. In addition, the
deployment of modern software systems is often dynamic, not static. The
practical enforceability of the GPL is consequently much more difficult now
than when it was first written.
It is much more difficult. Yes. But law is often difficult. If it
would be obvious all the time we would not need courts at all.
Police(wo)men would suffice then.
I think your second point also supports my argument. As you said, there's a
difference between computers and humans. Computers don't practice law or
preside over courtrooms, and humans don't resolve symbol tables. And humans
don't have time to analyze the millions of lines of code in a typical
enterprise software deployment as part of legal due diligence. I think
these facts present a real problem for enforcing the GPL. We're talking
about the real world here, and that means we have to consider practical
questions like these in order to determine whether the enforcement model
implied by the GPL is scalable.
Funnily the same problem applies to countless lawsuits about patent
violations. However, they do take place in real world. Often they end
by a extra-court agreement.
So, yes, it may be difficult to decide and it may wear out a lot of
experts but it is as possible as other lawsuits are. So what?
Firms not releasing software in any way are not subject to any risk.
They may use Free Software just as I am.
Of course, but I was talking about companies that DO release software. To
me, the great thing about the GPL is NOT that it allows people or companies
to get something for nothing as long as they don't release derivative works.
If that's all the GPL can do, then it sucks. It's just exploitation.
It's no exploitation because the people giving away Free Software are
by no way forced to do so (putting aside the question of derivative
works for a moment).
I
think even a money-based economy would be more ethical than that.
You're still bound to the way of thinking of an exchange economy. In
this it needs to be an ethical value to get something back if giving
something away - i.e. just exchange. It would be not enforceable if
justice would only be a law so you need an accompanying moral system.
Try to think a society where giving away without getting something
back is just as normal as receiving something without paying for it.
(Which our societies have numerous examples of BTW.) In this you don't
need to make just exchange a moral issue. Indeed even the notion of
justice may vanish with the exchange altogether.
Oekonux exists, of course, because we see a lot more potential in the GPL
than simply that.
Well, I usually point to the "principles of the production of Free
Software". The GPL is only a certain coagulated issue in the bigger
picture. It is necessary to make room for freedom in a world striving
for privatization the profit while socializing the losses.
In other words, we suspect that the GPL model might
provide a way to structure society so that nobody is forced to do something
they don't want to do, or that would demean them.
"They don't want to do" might be arguable. I'd need to think about it
in more depth. The problem is, that unlimited freedom - which seems to
be implied by that - is only the antithesis to coercion. The
synthesis, I'd expect a GPL society to implement, can not be simply
unlimited freedom then.
That means the GPL will
succeed only if it can encourage millions of people, not just a few, to
offer freely the products of their diverse labor.
Agreed if GPL replaced by the principles of the production of Free
Software.
Isn't that possibility
what's really interesting about the GPL?
Yes. And particularly I like the term "encourage" here :-) .
I think the only thing pleasure has to do with compensation is
the fact that starving to death is unpleasant, and that's
exactly what will happen to most of us unless we're compensated
in some way for a fairly significant portion of our time.
But why needs this to be linked? Why not asking for the right to live
a decent life completely independent of what you're doing?
Why not? Metabolism.
[...]
On first glance Graham seemed to have picked that up.
Again, thanks for a great post. But you didn't mention my point about the
"Library/Lesser" LGPL. I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts about it.
To me it seems that the LGPL is similar to BSD type licenses. Today
the FSF dismisses the LGPL more or less arguing it promotes freedom
less than the GPL. In earlier times they invented it, however.
I think to understand that, you need to recognize the Free Software
movement as a dynamical entity. Particularly over the last 10 years it
became bigger and bigger and with this stronger and stronger. The
opinion of the FSF about the LGPL reflects that in some way.
Sure there was a time, when it was necessary to have a license
allowing to privatize Free Software. The Free Software movement was by
far weaker than today.
However, today this is not longer necessary. The movement has *lots*
of support even from some big capitalist players and so FSF's move on
the LGPL is not only possible but logical.
Yes this is tactics. But you don't expect wisdom carved into stone, do
you. IMHO this applies to Stallman's words, too.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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