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Comment by onphonenow | Hacker News Reader

Quick note that the SF Conservancy has been advancing a scary new approach to liability with GPL.

Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonable.

The SF Conservancy is now trying to SUE folks over using GPL code they had no hand in creating. This would let them leverage a very extreme position to after the fact re-write what the licensing meant. BTW, they have a long history of this poor behavior. Here is Linus Torvalds notes on them.

"I actually think we should talk about GPL enforcement at the kernel summit, because I think it's an important issue," Torvalds gently began, "but we should talk about it the way we talk about other issues: among kernel developers. No lawyers present unless they are in the capacity of a developer and maintainer of actual code, and in particular, absolutely not the Software Freedom Conservancy." - Linus Torvalds

Note this goes hand in hand with others attempts to re-write the GPL following their failures to force through the GPLv3 such as the EFF. This involves lots of handwaving and appeals to history but doesn't match what developers understood the GPLv2 to mean at all.

This shows that once you get the lawyers involved, it's seriously game over in some cases. Even though they were not lawyers, the early folks created very useful clear licenses.

View on HN

> "I actually think we should talk about GPL enforcement at the kernel summit, because I think it's an important issue," Torvalds gently began, "but we should talk about it the way we talk about other issues: among kernel developers. No lawyers present unless they are in the capacity of a developer and maintainer of actual code, and in particular, absolutely not the Software Freedom Conservancy." - Linus Torvalds

This is fundamentally a pretty stupid take on the issue, to be honest. I can understand why Linus might want to ignore the SF Conservancy in particular here, but banning all lawyers in general is a stupid idea when you're discussing legal documents (that's what software licenses are). It's akin to saying "let's talk about why our car isn't working but NO CAR MECHANICS ALLOWED."

If what you're talking about is legal issues, you absolutely should involve lawyers, and generally earlier is better. This is particularly true when intellectual property is involved, as neglecting to take certain actions can completely foreclose future legal remedies.

From the lawyers I've spoken to about this, Linus's view on the GPL and the chosen enforcement strategy has long been known to be nonsense. But nothing will change as long as the kernel developers are intentionally burying their head in the sand and acting like they know better than the legal system.

> has long been known to be nonsense

could any statement be less substantiated than pure FUD like that?

I'm just curious here. If I as a developer want to license my code a certain way (and enforce that license in a certain way) what authority do these lawyers have to tell me I'm "stupid".

Especially if my approach has single handedly created the largest body of copyleft / collaborative / open source software out there with massive amounts of actual collaboration.

The irony is so strong here. Basically jerks, who can't get along with others (including each other, witness the battles between SFC and SFLC etc etc) with little value creation themselves want to force their view on others, even though folks have already voted with their feet.

By all means create the Affero GPLv3. Try to get folks to write software for it. That's fine.

But don't pretend to be on some moral high ground speaking for developers / creators who wrote the code. Let them speak for themselves. And don't go back and having lost the effort to get Affero GPLv3 or whatever adopted close the various SAAS and Tivo loopholes, go back and say some old license has these terms.

>If I as a developer want to license my code a certain way (and enforce that license in a certain way) what authority do these lawyers have to tell me I'm "stupid".

Are you willing to represent yourself in court? If the answer is no, then that's an admission you are stupider than a lawyer when it comes to legal matters. Nothing wrong with it, I have no problem admitting it myself. Let the programmers handle the programming and let the lawyers handle the law.

I'd skip the name calling.

You fail to understand how copyright works. If I'm the creator of the work, I have the copyright to it.

And yes, I'd be happy to represent myself if SFC came along and told me I could or couldn't do something with the code I wrote because that makes no sense. I can choose a license, I can dual license, I can re-license future releases and I can stop providing updates under any of those licenses.

So sure, if you and the SFC want to go after me for my code, go for it.

There seems to be a modern confusion that the folks NOT doing any of the work in writing code have all sorts of rights with respect to it (or time of a dev to fix their bugs). False.

> If I'm the creator of the work, I have the copyright to it.

Not necessarily. For example, work for hire, or copyright being assigned to the employer. Or maybe the work itself isn't copyrightable in the first place. There's even a fun provision where US government work doesn't have any copyright in the first place! You might also have transferred the copyright of your work after you created it in a way which doesn't give you any retained rights.

in the USA there is strong copyright for the author of the work in question. Work-for-hire is well understood in Chapter 1 of any book on that topic. Secondly, a court appearance is not required to be an author and therefore copyright holder. Suggestions that "if you are not able to make a court appearance then XYZ and etc" .. is fallacious to start with, condescending and sounds a lot like an attorney arrogance. NOLO Press, read my lips

There's no name calling, "stupid" is the exact word you used. I'm stupider than a lawyer when it comes to all the details of contract law, because I didn't study it as much as they do. If you aren't a lawyer, then you probably are too. Again, nothing wrong with admitting it. You and I can't know everything. It's actually arrogant and insulting to claim that you know more than a skilled lawyer or attorney just because you wrote some code, I would suggest not doing that.

>There seems to be a modern confusion that the folks NOT doing any of the work in writing code have all sorts of rights with respect to it (or time of a dev to fix their bugs). False.

I'm sorry but this makes no sense, it's weird how often I see this sentiment in open source. If you hired a lawyer to represent you and give you legal advice and defend you and court (which is multiple full time jobs) then you're paying them to do a job for you. You're not giving any of your rights away. You don't have to choose to hire SF Conservancy, you can hire another firm.

> If I as a developer want to license my code a certain way (and enforce that license in a certain way) what authority do these lawyers have to tell me I'm "stupid".

The first part of the statement--if you want to license your code a certain way--your lawyer should be to work with you to find a way to legally do that. Unless you want something patently absurd like "I want a way to let me murder any idiots who use my code without any consequences whatsoever."

It's the parenthetical that's problematic: you can't control how the law will be interpreted, and if you've got an incorrect interpretation of the law, you'll be laughed out of the courtroom. See, for example, any sovereign citizen case.

absolutely disagree with this paternalistic interpretation.. coders are typically literate. Your example claims some exaggerated illiterate premise and then uses that to say "talk to a lawyer instead" .. no comment beyond that since we obviously have different concepts of what rights of an author are...

If you want some examples of legal consequences you might not otherwise anticipate:

* Estoppel. Not going after someone when you are made aware of their violations may preclude you from ever being able to go after them.

* Severability. If one clause of your contract is unenforceable, the entire contract may become unenforceable unless you have a clause saying otherwise. (And even then, sometimes that won't apply!).

Taking the audience of HN as a reasonable sample of competent coders, I have seen more than a few commenters give very confident and very incorrect interpretations of the law. I am not so presumptuous to think that I am not in that class, although I do hope to do so more rarely than the average commenter.

And for what it's worth, I don't believe that the exaggerated premise I used was one that requires a lawyer to understand; it was merely an example that was so outrageous it would not be unreasonable for a lawyer to tell you that it was impossible for you to do what you want to do. An example that is not so outrageous is if you want to release something into the public domain--for there are jurisdictions where giving up all of your rights as an author is impossible.

* Estopple -- a quick search shows this USA law student

https://www.whitcomblawpc.com/additional-blogs-of-interest/e...

* Severability I thought we were talking about COPYRIGHT and Software License! apparently not?

"it was merely an example" , yes agree, it was merely an example "I want my license to say that I can murder someone" .. that was your example, right?

Goodness.

Look at the GPLv2 (written by a CODER).

Compare it to the GPLv3 (written by these expert lawyers).

Which is clearer, more understandable, just more rational?

Which is the license that has the larger adoption on more code used by more folks.

And despite all the claims here, intent is going to matter. When you sue Linus and say the GPL doesn't mean what he and everyone else actually creating this code think it means, then he's going to say, this was our intent. And you are going to have a VERY tall mountain to climb.

> Which is clearer, more understandable, just more rational?

Honestly, just quickly looking through the two licenses to answer a simple question... GPLv3 [1].

From a legal perspective, "simpler" documents tend to be less clear, because a lot more of the interpretation will rely on common law jurisprudence [2], and the "common" here doesn't mean "everybody agrees"--it in fact means "every jurisdiction has its own set of rules that may or may not translate directly in other jurisdiction."

> And despite all the claims here, intent is going to matter. When you sue Linus and say the GPL doesn't mean what he and everyone else actually creating this code think it means, then he's going to say, this was our intent. And you are going to have a VERY tall mountain to climb.

Given that a software license is close to a take-it-or-leave-it contract, ambiguous interpretations are generally going to be interpreted in favor of the person who has the take-it-or-leave-it option--which in this case is not going to be Linus and co.

[1] The criteria I used: "how do patents interact with this license." From what I can tell, GPLv2 technically doesn't actually contain a clause where the licensor grants the licensee any and all necessary patents--it instead talks about what happens if the code violates a third party's patent. Admittedly, reading the GPLv2 to not include a patent license grant is somewhat of a malicious reading, but the GPLv3's verbiage here is pretty explicit: "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."

[2] I'm limiting my analysis here to US jurisdictions, because that's what I know.

If GPLv3 had been GPLv2 plus patent stuff and a few other things it'd likely have been very welcomed.

For folks following along, the GPLv3 is more than 2x the length of the GPLv2

"If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product"

Give you a feel for the GPLv3 style :)

> If I as a developer want to license my code a certain way (and enforce that license in a certain way) what authority do these lawyers have to tell me I'm "stupid".

The exact same authority developers have when they tell their clients that they cannot run a 1,000,000 person site off the phone they forget to charge sometimes. Or even a designer telling a client their color scheme is poor (it clashes, isn't color-blind friendly, and renders poorly on anything smaller than a tablet)! It's a technical matter and they are paid SMEs.

They aren't saying Linus's goals are stupid. They're saying the methods he's using to achieve the goals are. Which makes sense. Because he's not a lawyer.

> They aren't saying Linus's goals are stupid. They're saying the methods he's using to achieve the goals are. Which makes sense.

So if lawyers were in charge and rampaged around suing the shit out of every company that made a mistake when using Linux, that would better suit Linus's goals? Only Linus can speak to Linus's goals, but I doubt this is what Linus really wants.

> if lawyers were in charge and rampaged around suing the shit out of every company that made a mistake when using Linux, that would better suit Linus's goals?

No. But if they went around sending demand letters that were complied with (because they came from a reputable law firm) by getting the code open sourced it would. I'm not saying these lawyers should be listened to. I'm saying some lawyers should. And excluding all lawyers is as dumb as trying to get funded for your FaceBook clone saying you only need the money to "hire a programmer" would be.

> Only Linus can speak to Linus's goals

This is nonsense. I might be wrong but I can certainly speak to his goals. We can even discuss what we think they are.

> If I as a developer want to license my code a certain way (and enforce that license in a certain way) what authority do these lawyers have to tell me I'm "stupid".

This is like saying “If I want to write my code a certain way, what right do compiler authors and language designers have to tell me code contains ‘syntax errors’ and ‘obvious bugs’”. On some level you can write whatever code you want. But if you want it to work the way you intend, there’s some rules that have to be followed

> If I want to write my code a certain way, what right do compiler authors and language designers have to tell me code contains ‘syntax errors’ and ‘obvious bugs’

That's not a reasonable comparison.

1. Licenses are fundamentally open to interpretation, programming languages have specifications. Yes, the specifications and compiler aren't perfect, however, code is designed to be specific. Legal agreements on the other hands are very intentionally the opposite. Legal agreements consciously avoid being overly specific in order to be broad and all encompassing. Legal agreements fundamentally have access to (and are evaluated with respect to) the concepts of "fair" and "reasonable"; which very intentionally have no strict definition. You need to argue your case.

2. More importantly, licenses are contracts. They're a civil matter (not criminal). Meaning the copyright holder can chose whether or not they want to enforce their license. That's a fundamental right of being a copyright holder. If you consciously don't enforce, you may lose the right to enforce (at least fully), but that is the license holder's call.

There's lots of ways that licenses can be objectively wrong. They can contain content that renders them invalid, or wording that legally means something different from what the author intended. A lawyer has the "right" to point out such flaws, and refusing to consult a lawyer won't make those flaws go away.

You are of course right about copyright holders being able to chose whether to enforce their license (at least if they were smart enough to use a license that will actually stand up in court!)

This type of positioning by the SFC is horrendous.

Why do I have to follow the SFC rules / interpretation (by the way very flawed) when I write my own code.

Seriously, what gives them this right over my code. I reject this, even if GPL licensed.

Of course, I get the argument you and they are trying to make. By releasing stuff with GPL software I may have written, I've somehow bound myself to release my decryption keys, unlock my devices etc etc. You are making my point for me, that is NOT what most authors of GPLv2 licensed code want or agree to. And just saying "because lawyers" doesn't make it so.

This is a good example of the hazards of involving lawyers I think. Wet becomes dry and dry becomes wet.

You (presumably) live in a country with rule-of-law. That means that if you are involved in a court case related to your GPL code, the legal system in your country will determine the outcome. Refusing to consult with lawyer in advance about what the outcome of such a legal proceeding will probably be, isn't going to improve your odds!

I have no clue whether whatever SFC has been claiming about the legal status of GPL is true or not (quite frankly, I haven't bothered even looking at what they're saying). But if the legal system's interpretation of GPLv2 doesn't match what most authors want or agree to, that sounds like precisely the kind of thing authors should want a lawyer to tell them, so they have a chance to switch to a different license.

The issue is the legal system has, to date, largely followed the understood intent of the GPLv2.

Consulting with the SFC does nothing to advance anything.

Harald Welte has had great success getting folks to release source code. However, he does not threaten commercial use of GPL software, no unlock keys / signing keys etc are needed.

> can understand why Linus might want to ignore the SF Conservancy in particular here, but banning all lawyers in general is a stupid idea when you're discussing legal documents

It's a perfectly valid approach if your goal is to discuss developer's concerns/priorities/goals for GPL enforcement and not legal tactics to achieve some known set of goals, and particularly if your goal is to avoid a talk at mixed purposes because some people have goals in mind that are not agreed on and are trying to talk tactics while other people are trying to talk goals and no one gets anywhere.

> others attempts to re-write the GPL

what does this mean? Is it a rewrite if the interpretation changes? How does one infer what the person granting this license "really meant"?

I think it's wrong not to get lawyers involved, because the laymen gets legalese interpretation wrong all the time (and it's an easy mistake to make - "doesn't match what developers understood the GPLv2 to mean at all").

GPL enforcement should be scary - banking on the folks who owns the copyright not enforcing it should not be possible. Selective enforcement should not be a thing either. This can only be possible if an overarching entity with funding does the enforcement.

Sure, the GPL deal was pretty simple. You can use the code, but if you change it, you need to make the code available with changes also under the GPL. This drove a fair bit of collaboration.

Each developer however could then make whatever they wanted with this code, and the GPL didn't control how you used the code in your project.

So you could make a car, and GPL software based control module could have a rev limiter in it. Others could also build cars using your code, BUT there was no requirement that USERS of your product be able to modify your product to for example get around the rev limiter or whatever.

This was battled out in part via the Tivo case, but was also just the normal readers understanding of the GPL.

This gave rise to the GPLv3 - which has the anti-tivoization clause in it. THAT version does say that you have to provide unlock codes etc etc. This ended up NOT being popular with the folks actually writing code.

What's happened though is that EFF / SFC have started to try and falsely claim that the GPLv2 is also like the GPLv3 - which is ironic because people DIDN'T want the GPLv3 over these issues in part.

https://jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/download/149/269 for an article and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU for Linus's take on the GPLv3 in general.

The latest tactic, because they can't get developers to go down the (A)GPLv3 path is to try and create a right that would allow them to sue everyone as activists even though they didn't write any code themselves. That would then let them put their own interpretations of all of this. I think the SFC is pushing that but I don't follow closely enough.

What is remarkable is just how few developers have gotten on board with this group.

It is pretty clear from the history, that GPLv2 always required the ability of users to update the installed software.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/

Um, that's the SFC version of GPLv2 intent. The actual folks using GPLv2 have a different view. This actually illustrates the issue that is going on with their attempt to claim GPL is not a copyright license (it has always been considered to be a copyright license) and their desire to change the intent. When you start having to twist and turn words and ideas this way you are in lawyer lala land.

"I give you source code, you give me your changes back; we’re even. … That’s my take on GPL version 2 and it’s that simple. … Version 3 extended that in ways that I personally am really uncomfortable with. Namely I give you source code, that means if you use that source code, you can’t use it on your device unless you follow my rules. And to me that’s a violation of everything version 2 stood for. And I understand why the FSF did it, because I know what the FSF wants, but to me it’s not the same license at all. So I was very upset, and made it very clear, and this was months before version 3 was actually published."

Please stop lying about what is "clear". The actual folks using these licenses disagree.

Here is Stallman on GPLv3

"There are several primary areas where version 3 is different from version 2. One is in regard to [T]ivoisation.

...

The Tivo includes some GPL-covered software. …[Y]ou can get the source code for that, as required by the GPL … and once you get the source code, you can modify it, and there are ways to install the modified software in your Tivo and if you do that, it won't run, period. Because, it does a check sum of the software and it verifies that it's a version from them and if it's your version, it won't run at all. So this is what we are forbidding, with the text we have written for GPL version three. It says that the source code they must give you includes whatever signature keys, or codes that are necessary to make your modified version run."

Who is Stallman you ask? The key guy behind GPLv2 (not the SFC BTW).

Nothing in GPLv2 requires giving changes back, only giving changes forward to the downstream users is required, not back upstream to the original developers. Giving code to users is pretty pointless if they can't install and run it, which is why both GPLv2 and GPLv3 require this. It is the culture of working upstream that leads to code flowing back to the original developers (obviously this is a very important thing to do, but it isn't required by the license). So I think Linus might need to write a new license to achieve what he actually wants from GPLv2. Note that any such license would discriminate against some classes of people who can't or mustn't communicate externally (those on a desert island, those in a totalitarian regime etc), so probably wouldn't be classed as "open source".

I expect that Stallman simply did not know the details of what Tivo was doing, or was worried about what they might do in the future. Their actions didn't include preventing you from running modified GPLed software (although that is a scary thing that is definitely possible and currently likely present in modern devices). They only prevented you from running their proprietary software on top of modified GPLed software. Stallman wanted to prevent that scenario with GPLv3, but the wording that finally made it into GPLv3 still allows what Tivo was doing.

https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

I assume that you're talking about this:

https://wptavern.com/software-freedom-conservancy-takes-on-v...

The GPL (version 2 or 3) says that if someone distributes a binary of a GPL-covered program, the person who receives the binary is entitled to receive source code. So the Conservancy brought an action on behalf of users: look, the text says you owe us source code. Please provide it.

Apparently you think that this is a "scary new approach". But the GPL was written to protect users.

Heads up - the GPL is a copyright license, not a contract with users.

Ironically, the SFC I think tried to file their case in state court. Copyright law is a federal matter.

I've no doubt they will drag this issue out in circles forever. But you pretty much know that if they aren't willing to litigate a copyright license in the normal venue - they've got a problem :)

This is what is so worrisome. Now we hear from the SFC that a GPL violation is NOT a copyright violation? This is a ridiculous and yes, extreme interpretation of what most developers would have understood.

Let's check back in on this in the future and see if they can even keep this in state court to try and avoid copyright law.

SFC didn't say that a GPL violation isn't a copyright violation, obviously it is. The Vizio lawsuit is simply an attempt at an alternative approach to achieving GPL compliance. There are a lot more ways to do that than just suing over copyright; for example you can get customs to seize the non-compliant devices as they enter the country, which Matthew Garret did to some Android tablets many years ago. The Vizio lawsuit is their first attempt at expanding the variety of compliance actions they can take. The Vizio lawsuit is kind of brilliant, since if they win it means that anyone can sue for GPL compliance, not just the copyright holder, which should make compliance much more common.

> Heads up - the GPL is a copyright license, not a contract with users.

A “license” (copyright or otherwise) is either a gratuitous license or a contract, and, while there are some important legal differences, gratuitous licenses are generally enforced under contract principles. So, generally, contract law applies to licenses.

Generally, the FSF and related groups have argued that the GPL is a contract license with mutual consideration, and I believe this has prevailed in some cases (it is possible for it to be true in some cases but not all, since contract depends on specific facts between the parties and not the written terms alone.)

> Ironically, the SFC I think tried to file their case in state court. Copyright law is a federal matter.

One principle of contract law is that the existence of a contract limits parties to action for breach if the terms are violated by the other party, not whatever action they would have on the underlying rights without the contract.

It appears to me that this post of yours involves lots of handwaving and appeals to history while the GPL continues to be ignored (look no further than e.g. Tesla).

Where is the hyperbolic let them leverage a very extreme position when some open source project asks for copyright assignment?

The issue the SFC has had is that folks like Linus and other developers are not interested AT ALL in their approach to enforcement or their interpretation of the GPL.

Since code talks and talk walks, they are not left with a ton. The Affero GPLv3 fell totally flat. GPLv3 pretty flat (Samba was a big adopter maybe? Not sure what growth they saw after that). Some of the SFC enforcement saw a big move / growth in MIT style licenses (no copyleft elements really) which is a big tragedy as well as a fracturing of licensing (another miss in my book).

So if they can get folks to assign them the copyright, that will let them start chasing again.

I'm not handwaving, I cited the article, the youtube video. This is pretty well known as a debate.

> Some of the SFC enforcement saw a big move / growth in MIT style licenses (no copyleft elements really) which is a big tragedy as well as a fracturing of licensing (another miss in my book).

indeed. Tragedy is the right word!

> If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases

That never made sense to me. AFAIK, in many GPL projects there are numerous copyright holders. Therefore, who is going to be the one to sue over the issues and optional seek damages. If all the SF Conservancy wants is the ability to sue violators, why aren't they paying someone to develop a few lines to the Linux kernel and every other project. Then, they can have standing to sue. Of course, it doesn't give them standing to license everyone else's code, but if they want to sue it works.

GPL is a license to use copyrighted software. Fundamentally it sits on top of copyright. It can never be stronger than that foundation. If you are using a few lines of code without a valid license thats a copyright breach. And you can be sued. But for what amount? How large damages can you claim for the illicit use of a few lines? Not a lot, likely.

> How large damages can you claim for the illicit use of a few lines? Not a lot, likely.

no one asked that question. GPL source code include some of the largest and most used software systems today.

Maybe I misunderstand the legal situation here, but if "they paying someone to develop a few lines to the Linux kernel and every other project", then they would only have standing to sue regarding those specific lines right? Unless they can get other contributors on board.

Standard IANAL, but I have to deal with copyright issues sometimes.

Yes, they would only have standing to sue based on those lines and any lines based on them as a derivative work. I'd imagine that if they showed they were good custodians of suing people (making it easy to get back in compliance as opposed to trying to milk people of money) they could get people to join them on a case-by-case basis.

Even without that, they don't have to prove the value of the code that was used. You can sue for copyright infringement based on a standard damage instead, which is assumed to be 10k-250k per violation.

They want violators to stop being violators and comply, by releasing source code when they fork a GPLed work.

Yes. And I want world peace. The question was not "what do these people want" but "who does what to make it happen".

They use legal action as a tool to make that happen; in many cases you never hear about it because the company quietly settles and releases source code.

So, way to dodge the question.

What I asked was " in many GPL projects there are numerous copyright holders. Therefore, who is going to be the one to sue over the issues and optional seek damages"

You responded with "they".

That's not addressing my point, which is asking about which actor is taking action, why they are and not another actor, etc.

Like, is someone who contributed 3 lines of code 7 years ago going to be actively suing people?

Yes, they could if they care too. Folks have done this with (relatively) small contributions.

Most companies are willing to share their code as GPL requires when asked.

What they aren't willing to do is provide authorization keys etc to hardware etc as they don't feel GPLv2 requires that. Because most GPLv2 devs ALSO don't think GPLv2 requires that not a lot of litigation there.

My guess is that if SFC does get a smaller kernel contributor to assign copyright the kernel devs may try and remove their contribution.

The SFC / related entities have worked with GPL developers to sue. All they need is a developer to let them act as their lawyer (for free).

This is what is remarkable. The SFC is so toxic in the open source developer community that despite their being a ton of a developers, not that many want to jump on the SFC train. So yes, this makes it hard for them.

Linus joked the title of a talk should be:

"Lawyers: poisonous to openness, poisonous to community, poisonous to projects".

So an approach for SFC might be to write code and start contributing. One challenge they might face is that a) they can't write code and/or b) getting developers to write for them that can do meaningful work may be difficult given their reputation and c) open source projects might choose not to accept their code because they know they'd be getting in bed with the SFC.

Realize the SFC views are very left field. They are now arguing in the Vizio case that the GPL is not a copyright license but some kind of contract with users. This is so backwards its crazy.

One solution, they write some very cool software everyone WANTS to use, then they could sue everyone. Downside, folks might stop using their software.

Developers have sued - that's mostly been fine I think. Harald Welte did a lot for the GPL. I liked most of his cases. He kept it focused on GPL license being available, and source code being available. He even won cases where links to source code in documentation were not allowed which was an interesting twist. But fundamentally his litigation followed Linus's and many other developers views, I give you my code, you give me yours, we are square. He did over 100 cases, and was successful every time that I know of.

I think the SFC is going to be on much thinner ground with their Vizio case but we will see.

> following their failures to force through the GPLv3 such as the EFF

Surely you mean GNU and not EFF.

> The SF Conservancy is now trying to SUE folks over using GPL code they had no hand in creating.

Do you have a source for this claim. Unless you just mean, that they are suing people on behalf of the creator of the code (But without creating it themselves), in which case I would say you are being extremely misleading.

Why would they have legal standing if they are not the copyright owner?

Certainly you can't do it against the will of the copyright owner, as the copyright owner is allowed to give new licenses to anyone they want under whatever terms they want.

Edit: i stand corrected.

This is described by post itself:

>The lawsuit we filed last year against Vizio takes an approach more appropriate for widely marketed and available consumer devices. Namely, the claim in Vizio is a contract claim for third-party beneficiary rights under the GPL, which will allow us (and all other customers who bought Vizio TV's) to receive the repair and modification instructions to the software more directly.

I don't think this is against the spirit of GPL, after all the focus of it is user freedom (though arguably GPLv2 ended up weaker than expected by FSF (TiVo hole), and then FSF strongly pushed to switch to GPLv3 while ignoring that some developers deliberately preferred v2 terms).

You are adopting the SFC's flawed analysis here.

The rights to the code belong to the AUTHOR of the code. Random users have no rights. The GPL is a grant to someone to use code without payment. Failure to follow the GPL means the AUTHORS rights are restored and license to use freely revoked. Again, users have no claim in this situation.

This SFC interpretation of third party rights is ridiculous. I hope some of the bigger hitters in this space come out with some statements on this.

As part of the GPL bargain, third parties have rights to the code too, just like second parties. And further downstream to everyone in the world.

No, this is false. I the distributor does not share their code to users, then their license from the AUTHOR is revocable by the copyright holder which is the author not the user.

They (SFC) sued Vizio

https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2021/10/software-freedom-cons...

> Quick note that the SF Conservancy has been advancing a scary new approach to liability with GPL.

> Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonable.

If you write some code and release it under the GPL, and some company makes a device that includes a modified version of the software, and I buy the device but the company refuses to provide source for their modifications, why should my rights under the GPL depend on you as a developer (and copyright holder) suing the company? The GPL grants the user of the software specific rights and imposes equivalent obligations on whoever the user received the software from.

Whether the original developer is busy, uninterested, incapacitated, or even dead should have no impact on my rights as a user.

It may be true that a user is not (and perhaps even should not be) able to terminate the company's license to use, modify, and redistribute GPL software (I think that's debatable, since the GPL doesn't condition termination on the copyright owner taking action, but IANAL), but a user receiving the software should damn well be able to insist on receiving the modified source code, and in the face of a refusal to comply, a user should be able to sue. In fact, a class action suit on behalf of all affected users should be possible.

It is an important principle of the legal system that parties subject to an externality must be powerless to do anything.

It depends on your viewpoint. GPL code authors rarely have the means to pursue legal action in response to license violations. As a result, GPL code is generally "stolen" with impunity.

If you really want to pursue violations you COULD partner with SFC - the busybox developer did this.

"As the ex-maintainer of busybox who STARTED those lawsuits in the first place and now HUGELY REGRETS ever having done so, I think I'm entitled to stop the lawsuits in whatever way I see fit. They never resulted in a single line of code added to the busybox repository. They HAVE resulted in more than one company exiting Linux development entirely and switching to non-Linux operating systems" - https://lwn.net/Articles/478361/

Here is the SFC's issue (came up when busybox replacements were discussed)

"What can we do? The real problem here is that the SFC's reliance on Busybox means that they're only able to target infringers who use that Busybox code. No significant kernel copyright holders have so far offered to allow the SFC to enforce their copyrights, with the result that enforcement action will grind to a halt as vendors move over to this Busybox replacement."

What's weird is despite NO significant copyright holder going along with SFC, they keep on marching forward as if they are backed by folks creating this code.

> They never resulted in a single line of code added to the busybox repository.

This is why you don't want lawyers calling the shots. Lawyers are looking to get paid, they'd rather get a cash settlement than get the code. If the lawyers are working for you, the copyright holder, then you can choose how to handle the situation. But if you sign the code over to the lawyers, it will no longer be your call.

The legal fees would add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at a minimum. There just aren't many people / organizations who have that kind of money to spend just to get some open source code. Perhaps adding some language about legal fees would make the license more attractive to lawyers.

I own the copyright to some GPL code. Nothing major or very important, but it's out there nonetheless. If I find out that a company has taken my code and is violating the license, here are the two outcomes I'd want, in order of preference:

1) The violator release their code under the GPL, as the license said they should have.

2) If they refuse my request for #1, I want to forget the matter completely and put it behind me.

If a lawyer offers to represent me pro bono and help me get the code, with no talk of getting paid, I'd accept that offer. I wrote the code with no expectation of getting paid for it. If a lawyer wants donate his labor to the project as I donated mine, that's fine with me. Otherwise, the lawyer can crawl up his own ass and die there. I'd rather have scenario #2 than see a lawyer getting paid to sue somebody over my code.

My point is that the GPL should include a clause that if you sue for a breach of contract and win, then the violator of the license needs to pay your legal fees. This would (theoretically) allow a lawyer to sue with your permission and on your behalf and get paid while still forcing the infringer to respect the contract and release their code.

> 2) If they refuse my request for #1, I want to forget the matter completely and put it behind me.

The likely result here is that the request will be refused (or just ignored) by default. Which means that there is no chance the license will ever be complied with, and users will never receive the modified code that they are entitled to under the GPL.

What's the point of licensing under the GPL if users never get the rights the GPL grants them?

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