Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 03:45:37AM +0200, Thiemo Seufer wrote: > > An unrelated third party, whose stance doesn't matter for the issue. > > How is Debian unrelated? They're risking violating the GPL, and putting > themselves at legal risk.
If you want to avoid every imaginable legal risk, you have to shut down Debian immediately. Btw, I'm pretty sure Debian violates every second software patent. > This isn't a matter of a "stance"; this is a matter of trying to determine > if we're violating the GPL. The hypothetical suing copyright holder says yes, the driver author says no. Both claims aren't easily dismissable. So there's no way to determine this beforehand. > > The only one who can sue is a copyright holder, and he'll first have > > to sue the offender successfully over the alleged GPL violation. The > > potentially affected people don't seem to be overly concerned about > > that prospect. > > Uh, but Debian (and everyone else distributing Debian) *is* the offender, > being the ones potentially violating the GPL by distributing GPL-licensed > software without complete source. The hypothetical suing copyright holder will have to prove the violation against the driver author, or at least get some court order, before he can go after distributors. At least that's how things are handled by german Urheberrecht, it seems to be handled similiar in the US WRT. (Standard Disclaimer: IANAL) > (Again, I'm not certain whether there's a GPL problem here or not, but > the answer is certainly relevant to Debian.) The answer is given by a court, and that's the moment it becomes relevant for Debian. Thiemo
