On 9/11/05, Yorick Cool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Larry Lessig? Larry Rosen? Séverine Dussollier? Etienne Montero? > Dave MacGowan? Pam Samuelson?
Are you saying these people are on record in believing that the GPL "works" in the sense we are discussing -- forbidding the distribution, on terms other than the GPL's, of code that uses a GPL library (or other form of modular software component) through its published API? Can you provide URLs or other citations to back this up? Especially those that cite any actual law in support of their position? I will grant you Lawrence Lessig even though a few minutes' Googling shows me no evidence that he has personally endorsed this view -- but he's got very close ties to the FSF and the SFLC, and I consider him just as much an interested party as Eben Moglen himself. (Mr. Lessig is also the founder of Creative Commons and presumably the drafter of its licenses; that won't necessarily endear his perspective on licensing to debian-legal, whatever services he may have rendered on other fronts.) As for Larry Rosen, I can't see any indication from his writings that he buys into the dynamic linking ban, he just seems to think that the FSF's long-published stance muddies the waters and their willingness to stir up jihad makes it a losing proposition anyway. I am not acquainted with the writings of the others you name, but perhaps you can supply some citations. Odd though the GPL's drafting may be, I think most qualified commentators (which I am not -- IANAL) agree that it should be read to compel the release of source code for modifications or enhancements inseparable from the GPL work. Whether or not "derivative work" is really the right term for revisions commissioned by an authorized publisher (which, even if they improve its _function_ by fixing bugs, may have such trivial impact on its _expressive_ content as to provide no basis for additional copyright), it's clear that the right to authorize the publication of non-trivially modified editions is reserved to the copyright holder on the original. Even if a close reading of the GPL's text were to suggest ways to squirm around its intent in this area, it seems likely that a court would rule in the licensor's favor, at least to the extent of a conditional injunction -- publish source code or cease distribution of binaries -- assuming, of course, that suit was brought by someone whose right to register copyright in the work survives scrutiny. But no qualified source that I have yet found, other than those directly affiliated with the FSF, seems to be willing to endorse the "dynamic linking ban" any further than "well, the FSF makes these claims, and it's hard to tell what a court will think." I personally don't think it's very hard to tell what a US court will think (at least at the circuit court level and assuming competent lawyering) -- it's pretty clear from cases like Lotus and Lexmark that attempts to extend the copyright monopoly to forbid interoperation are frowned upon. It's particularly bad news when the legal monopoly is combined with market dominance in a given niche -- and there are a number of sectors in which the FSF and Microsoft have a near-total duopoly, and where neither demonstrates any qualms about leveraging its advantages to squeeze bit players out of neighboring niches. If I were a major OpenSSL contributor, for instance, I would be seriously considering suing the FSF (and perhaps other parties) under a suitable choice of unfair competition statute. (Just because a certain pro se complainant in Indiana can't find an appropriate law under which he has standing doesn't mean a genuinely injured party with a good lawyer can't.) I would be especially annoyed that GNU TLS provides an OpenSSL shim -- directly cribbed from OpenSSL headers -- and that shim is in the GPL (not LGPL) portion, specifically to ease the transition for GPL applications while maintaining the dynamic-link-ban stance towards everyone else. Don't try to tell me that the byzantine OpenSSL API suffers more from the doctrine of merger of ideas and expression than the published interface of any GPL library -- if it's legit for gnutls-extras to provide substantially the OpenSSL interface, which I believe it is under current case law in many US circuits, then the "linking ban" doesn't have a leg to stand on. If anyone other than the FSF (technically the GNU TLS contributors, I suppose, but I think a theory of vicarious liability would stick) were pulling that stunt, we would all be howling in outrage. (If you don't see that, imagine Microsoft bundling DLLs that are API-compatible with the major Gnome libraries in XP SP3, tidily integrated with the Windows native widgets, but forbidding their use from GPL applications.) It's very sad to see Debian functioning as the FSF's stalking-horse in the GPL/OpenSSL fiasco, and I would be quite surprised if you could find a lawyer outside the FSF's circle who approves. - Michael (IANAL, TINLA)
