Comment by shkkmo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shkkmo | Hacker News Reader

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> If you contribute to an open source project, then use that code in for example a locked down device, a user / conservancy who views that as a violation of GPL can sue you.

If it is only code you wrote and you haven't transfered your copyright to the project, then No, this creates no standing.

> That's what's so new about this. There is now a contract (not copyright) element - which binds you and the recipients of your code.

Incorrect, there is a contract that binds you and recipients of the code under a GPL license.

If you receive that code under a different license, that contract doesn't exist.

Edit: Let me put it this way. Let's say you create a library and make it available under GPL. Any company that uses your code under that GPL license, has entered a contract with you that allows users of their software to sue them for GPL violations. However, you can also simultaneously offer a non-GPL, proprietary license for that library to paying customers. Those paying customers would not be part of any GPL contract, they would instead have whatever contract they signed with you when buying the proprietary license. The users of that paying customer would have no grounds to sue that paying customer, because that paying customer never agreed to the GPL contract. (OFC if you use other people's code in your library under a GPL license, then you don't have the legal right to offer a propriety license for that code.)

You are missing a large value to GPL code, it's often developed collaboratively.

Consider carefully your example, you've contributed to some GPLv2 body of code. Now you ship that code on your device (making available corresponding source code, but not decryption keys). You are not the only copyright holder, this is a collective effort.

Can you avoid the GPL'ed requirements? No. More critically, this allows new requirements to be asserted (under the GPL) that GPLv2 developers might not have considered something they want to enforce (hardware unlock) but users and activists might want to try and enforce.

All good for the users. Glad to hear this is welcomed by developers and those hiring open source contributors. This is still going to be a change from past GPLv2 experience I think for some / many.

I'm missing something here. Are you saying that people should be able to (or were previously able to) violate the GPL with software that they contributed to, but didn't completely write? What about the rights of the other contributors?

edit: if not, maybe you're trying to say that the people who control the license to the project (and have the contributors' agreements to prove it) can't relicense the code however they want (and however is allowed in the agreement) for whoever they want? Because I don't think that's true.

In the past if you were a contributor and violated the GPL in terms of your product (that used yours and others code) it was only other contributors who could sue you (ie, you broke your deal with them, and they had the copyright that was violated).

There are different views on the GPLv2. Most of the contributors / developers on GPLv2 just wanted you to share back your code, so most litigation in this space followed that approach. Even there, it was at times pretty cooperative.

The SFC has a MUCH more aggressive view. They have views around DRM / unlocks on hardware and much more that are very user rights focused, but pose complications to developers. In the past though, they really couldn't pursue these claims because despite lots of contributors to projects, many didn't support their approach and so wouldn't work with them to make copyright claims. To give you a sense of some developers views:

"lawyering has become a nasty festering disease, and the SFC [Software Freedom Conservancy] and Bradley Kuhn has been the Typhoid Mary spreading the disease." - Linus Torvalds (key player in the Linux kernel development).

They and the EFF created Affero GPLv3 and GPLv3 to try and solve for some of the issues they felt were important, but developers didn't really get on board.

The key is SFC can now sue folks making and distributing devices with OSS software WITHOUT any permission or input from the creators and copyright holders of the software, that is what is so huge. And this is particularly important because many authors and copyright holders have different views on these issues compared to the SFC.

We went though this once with GPLv3 already. SAMBA for example moved pretty aggressively to GPLv3. I'm not sure apple kept contributing to it or updating it in their software once that happened.

> The key is SFC can now sue folks making and distributing devices with OSS software WITHOUT any permission or input from the creators and copyright holders of the software, that is what is so huge. And this is particularly important because many authors and copyright holders have different views on these issues compared to the SFC.

Sure, its easier to get standing to enforce GPL, but the legal requirements of abiding by GPL have not changed due to this decision. The only change is that GPL violations that were hard to pursue are now easier and people that have been violating GPL will be more likely to face consequences.

If this that GPL projects have lower adoption rates then that is because fewer people who would have violated the license will bow avoid it. Similarly, if fewer projects areadr available as under GPL, it is because they are adopting licenses that have fewer restrictions.

I don't personally see the advantage of having a more difficult to enforce license. Either your license accurately matches your intent in a court of law and should be enforced rigorously, or it doesn't match your intent and you should use a different license.

Selectively enforced licenses seems like selectively enforced laws: ripe for corruption.

Its interesting to note that the GPLv2 doesn't say anything about sharing back your code, only sharing forward your code to downstream users (who might or might not then share that code back upstream). So downstream users have the same access to software as upstream authors; that makes the SFC position seem much more consistent with the GPL than what Linus says.

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