GPL (was Re: [LINK] Any more spin, and I'm going to throw up)

[David Chia]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 08:31:20AM +1000, hartr@interweft.com.au wrote:
> On 13 Nov, David Chia wrote:
> > This is because there is still a copyright and there are strings attached
> > on how the softwares can be used.  The adoption of GPL is a political
> > preference and I am not here to debate about it. Nevertheless, GPL in
> > practice is a "copyright virus" in that any softwares it has contact
> > with become GPL. Relative sizes or importance are not relevant. If
> > a multi-megabyte package call a tiny 1 kb dynamic software library
> > directly then that multi-megabyte package can only be distributed
> > "under GPL". That might be good if you believe in GPL that all source code
> > should be publicly available. Otherwise it can have serious consequences
> > to your software business models.
> 
> That statement is a little misleading as the legal problems with using
> (without permission) someone else's code that is licenced under a
> proprietary licence are just as severe.

Big name M* had endured infringement case without much problem.  Would you
assert the same if their proprietary flag ship product source code were
made public, bearing in mind how in the past they had stressed that the
components are functionally inseperatable and hence the damage might not
be able to be partitioned?

> > If the programmer from a proprietary software company has cut corner
> > in secretly utilizes fragment of GPL software code, and that has passed
> > through the quality assurance without being noticed, and that software
> > has been distributed/sold in binary form, then that company might have
> > infringed the GPL copyright and they might have to release the source
> > code for the "whole package" publicly as GPL code, not just the code
> > fragment in question. That is what the proprietary software companies
> > are afraid of. Even other non-GPL open source developers have to take
> > notice about this.
> 
> There is no 'might' here. If code from a GPL program is used in a
> proprietary program, the proprietary program in its entirety must be
> licenced under the GPL according to the GPL licence terms. This has not
> yet been tested in court, but (as I understand it) it has come close to
> doing so in the past (the companies in question backed off and removed
> the offending code).

Hey, as I said IANAL, a softer tone would help too :)

> Finally, the presence of so much good open source code licenced under
> the GPL represents a real long term threat to Microsoft: there is a real
> danger of programmers it hires using GPL licenced code in Microsft
> products.
> 
> Todays' programming graduates will inevitably have been exposed to open
> source in their bachelor programs. It must be very galling to such
> people to be unable to grab a chunk of code that does X from an open
> source project. Instead theyt have to reinvent the wheel - and do so
> without making the wheel look in anyway like the open source wheel.

I suspect those in marketing do not appreciate the seriousness of
the matter but someone in the company do understand the implication
of that threat. It happened before through whatever reasons with other
commercial license and it migh happen again with GPL. Lost sale might be
temporary. Sudden lost of a business model without alternative might be
terminal. 


--
David Chia, RMIT University