Re: Final text of GPL v3 (original) (raw)

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 13:27:47 -0700 Chris Waters wrote:

On Sat, 30 Jun 2007, Francesco Poli wrote:

When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work,

This clause is troublesome, as it seems to be overreaching. For instance, it could be interpreted as covering legal powers to forbid "computer crimes" such as unauthorized intrusion into computer systems.

E.g.: suppose that the covered work is a vulnerability scanner, or password cracker, or anyway a tool that could be used (among other things) to break into other people's computers. Using that tool in this manner is exercising a right "under this License"

Using a tool is not exercising a right under the license. The license concerns itself only with copying and modification. (It is not an end user license agreement.)

Well, Section 2 of GPLv3 states, in part:

| This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the | unmodified Program.

This can be a legal no-op in many jurisdictions where copyright does not cover use, but not necessarily everywhere.

But anyway, there's not only copyright, there are software patents too (and I should add "unfortunately"). Section 11 states, in part:

| Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free | patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to | make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and | propagate the contents of its contributor version.

In jurisdictions where some contributor's essential patents are valid and enforceable (and actively enforced) you need to accept the GNU GPL v3 even for the sole purpose of using or running the program.

Beyond that, I agree with MJ's analysis, but I think the point I raised is an important additional one.

I already kinda agreed with MJ Ray on this point: see http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/06/msg00279.html

Waiving legal rights can be seen as a fee: this clause could fail DFSG#1.

All free licenses, and especially all copyleft licenses, require the waiver of certain legal rights (such as the right to sue for copyright infringement).

I waive my right to sue for copyright infringement, when I license a work under the GNU GPL v2? That's new to me. How can the copyleft mechanism be effective, if I cannot sue people who do not comply with the license?!?

The requirement in copyleft to provide source code can also be seen as a fee--in fact, this has been cited as a reason for considering the GPLv2 valid, enforcible and non- discriminatory with respect to anti-trust law. If waving legal rights is a problem, we have no licenses left.

The requirement to provide source code of (redistributed) modified versions is not waiving legal rights. Which right that I would enjoy by not accepting the license am I waiving? The right to distribute modified versions without providing source? I do not have such a right, unless I get permission from the copyright holder of the unmodified work. Accepting the license is the way to get that permission.

[...]

d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must
display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has
interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal
Notices, your work need not make them do so.

Clause 5d is definitely worse than the corresponding clause 2c in GPLv2.

Are you talking about the missing "when started running...in the most ordinary way"? [...]

I already explained what I am talking about: please see http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/07/msg00010.html

-- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4

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