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He didn't give it away. He licensed it under a specific license he chose and people have to accept if they want to use his work.

Say that I help you with some endeavour of yours, and that I do that provided you do the same with an endeavour of mine. You accept, so I help you, then you decide to not help me. The harm is that you have extracted value from me by promising to me something you didn't deliver.

In the GPL licensing case, the harm is that he choose to provide his code under GPL provided those who use it would put changes and derivative works under GPL too.

In particular, this means that VMWare choose to use GPL code knowingly they would have to share the result but they didn't. The harm is much bigger in that everybody who is happy with GPL code can't use VMWare's code. That's a lot of people.

The problem is ownership. Behind the GPL is a (traditional) view of ownership, where if you own something you can do what you like with it. Own that table? Well you can sand it, smash it, burn it or use it. This is your house? Well you can do what you like with it.

Now, when it comes to IP that notion of ownership has all but been thrown away. 'Owning' a song entitles you to some rights, often only valid for a period of time, and subject to arbitrary modification later on.

When it comes to software we're often even worse off - we can't even find out what it does. The GPL is an attempt to enforce a stronger notion of ownership, so that if you have the software in your possession you can do whatever you like to it. The source code is open, you can modify it, or anything else.

So there's the harm. The harm is to you. When you're given a piece of software you have limited, if any, ability to find out what it does, to modify it to suit your needs, to modify it to play around. And yet you 'pay' for this software. You're paying to acquire a set of limited rights, often mutable and on the whole useless (as rights).

You might say that's all a bit theoretical. But all the sony rootkits, Lenovo MITM attacks, credit carf theofts, etc. - they all happen because no one can see what the software they "own" does.

I dislike the way the GPL works - copyleft enforcement - the law should simply be changed. But the principle seems about right.

It would be more useful instead of speaking in terms of different degrees of ownership to speak specifically in terms of what is owned and what isn't. In GPL software, you not only own the functioning application but you own (within certain privilege restrictions) the source code, and therefore can modify that source code to produce a new, different piece of software that you also own.

Compare this to your song analogy. A GPL'd song would also provide the original production project "source" - the raw studio recordings of each track, the digital audio workstation file project that compiles it all together and renders the final single stereo track. You could then modify the song by removing individual elements, changing the mix, changing the arrangement, etc, and render out a new stereo song. Very few artists actually do this, because it's a weird idea that somehow the software industry has latched onto that no other sections care much about or think is particularly important, because they haven't been bitten by this strangely worded "freedom" bug.

Or the table analogy: not only do you own the table, you own the design documents, the factory floor plan, the knowledge of what saws and blades and bolt suppliers were used to assemble it. You can then use that knowledge to produce new tables with modified designs. Etc.

In other words your physical goods analogy falls pretty short unless you separate it into the functional object or IP and the original, complex information that allows one to actually produce modified versions of that object or IP.

You are completely ignoring the explicit harm that is central to the GPL.

Namely, that if everyone behaved the harmless way you and VMWare describe, there would be very little/lower quality GPL software. And, that GPL contributors give their time and code away on the condition that those who benefit from it give back in the form of contributions and openness instead of money.

GPL coders give their code away with conditions, and VMWare is breaking that condition. If VMWare wants to get code for free with no quid pro quo, then there's BSD.

EDIT - Personal context - I've always liked MIT/BSD license. I just understand the GPL and its intentions, too.

>If someone then uses the work for their own financial benefit, or modifies it without giving you the changes back, what has that deprived you of?

The GPL is intended as a license that improves software available to the public. By not complying with the license they agreed to, VMware is depriving me, you, Christoph and the general public from software which we have the right to use, modify and share under the GPL (and which just happens to be coded by VMware).

Imagine a contract that says "You owe me 5% of the revenue you make in any product derived from my project." This is reasonable, it is how royalties work for many different things and it's a pretty battle-tested model. I think we can all agree that if you sign such a contract and then don't pay the royalties, then you can reasonably be taken to court for failing to comply with the contract, and forced to pay what you owe, plus damages to keep you from trying it again. The GPL is similar to a contract like that, except that it says "if you agree to redistribute your derived works under this same contract, you don't owe any royalties at all." So it's similarly reasonable to be taken to court for failing to comply with those terms, and forced to pay damages.

So I think the "harm" is that they failed to adhere to the contract they made with him. That may not be satisfying to you, but that's certainly enough in itself for this to go to court. Contracts is fundamental to how modern societies function—courts enforce that when parties agree to legal terms, those terms are adhered to.

The harm is in how VMWare's customers are being denied the very generous conditions Christoph extended to VMWare and everyone else who benefits from using that code. He didn't write it for VMWare, he wrote it for everyone.

There is nothing wrong with using GPL code in commercial products, but why should VMWare be allowed special privileges to it? Everyone should be able to use the code for their own purposes, whether commercial or not, on the same generous terms.

IANAL. I'm not a GPL expert. But here's my reasoning:

1. Code written under the GPL is value created for public consumption. VMWare is violating the spirit of reciprocity by benefiting from that value, creating more value on top of it, then not releasing their additions for everyone to benefit.

So it's not about Christoph's benefit, nor the company's. It's about our benefit as the people not involved directly in that transaction.

2. I imagine copyright gets really hairy if you write something, someone comes along and modifies it over a period of a year or two, then claims ownership. I imagine the GPL helps clear that sort of thing up as well.

Seriously? "modifies it without giving you the changes back, what has that deprived you of?"

Uh... it's depriving you of the changes? e.g the kind of changes a big, rich company can afford to pay people to do to free software.

The specific issue here is that he did "give it away," but not for free. He gave it away under the terms of the GPL as its license. If I give you something, but only under a particular agreement, and you break that agreement, then there are usually some form on consequences, no?

If he were really giving it away for free with no strings attached, then he would have used something like a CC license, which was specifically designed for that purpose.

I confess I've never paid much attention to copyright law, and when I think about this I find one particular reason. I don't understand the harm. What bad thing happens when copyright law is not obeyed? I think I understand that the answer is that someone's generously written code (like, perhaps, VMWare's) may then be taken into private hands without payment and used to benefit a commercial company or private individual. Is that harm? But if so, what's the harm? You wrote your code, didn't you? I'm asking in all sincerity: what specific asset or benefit has VMWare lost when someone takes their code and uses it for a commercial product or for private use without paying them?

Some people seem to get upset about such events: "The lousy crackers copied this software/game/movie and removed the copy protection, then distributed it for free no the internet. Nobody paid us!" So that's the harm? But how is that harmful? How does that hurt VMWare or anyone else whose copyrighted material has been reused without their permission?

Perhaps the answer is: "The author of that worked so hard on it and gave such expertise and so much time and now their work is providing benefit to others with no further benefit to the author." I would certainly agree in general that if you work hard on something and someone copies your work and benefits from it instead of you, then this is a clear and deplorable harm. But if you sell your work for money so that people who pay can benefit from it in general, then you have agreed that your sole benefit is not at issue and that you don't mind if other people use it. If someone then uses the work for their own financial benefit, what has that deprived you of? Where's the harm?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

To state it plainly, instead of simply using parody, Christoph wrote some code, and under copyright law has a right to control how people use it for at least the next hundred years or so. Some people who write code like that say "I'll let you use it if you pay me money." Christoph said "I'll let you use it if you let ME (and everyone else) use any modifications you make or things you build from it." Allegedly, VMWare used Christoph's code and DIDN'T pay him (they did not pay him money NOR did they adhere to the specific behavior that Christoph had requested). It is "harm" only in the sense that "stealing" software or music or movies is "harm".

Do you consider plagiarism and/or freebooting to be harms? If so: that's the harm here. If not, why not?

Not the OP, but I think that question moves the goalposts.

The states involved in this dispute recognize the idea of intellectual property and protect it with copyright. Questioning the validity of intellectual property as a concept is a very different from the question at hand.

To wit, an author in Germany should be able to expect that his copyright would be respected by other entities in Germany, as they're all bound by the same laws. Regardless of our feelings regarding the moral validity of copyright or intellectual property.

It's worth noting that plagiarism is a separate concept, and not really a legal issue (unless of course you are bound by contract not to plagiaries, which I'd imagine most academics and journalists are in their employment contracts). This is also why the MIT license needs an attribution clause.

Karl Fogel proposed an experiment, that legislators introduce a bill proposing a right to attribution, essentially making plagiarism illegal, to gauge the media industry's reaction. His prediction was that they would balk at the proposal.

> But if you give your work away so that people benefit from it in general, then you have agreed that your sole benefit is not at issue and that you don't expect compensation for the work.

Two things. First, you aren't giving your work away. This premise is false. You are licensing your work. It's still yours. Without that license, it's yours. You are exchanging the right to use that work for certain conditions that must be followed. You expect to be compensated.

> what specific asset or benefit have you lost when someone takes your GPL code and uses it in their commercial product?

This can be rewritten as such:

"What specific asset or benefit have you lost when someone takes your copyrighted code and uses it in their commercial product?"

The answer for that is the same answer for the question you asked.

Many pirates and now days politicians do ask this question about copyright. Where is the harm when someone who would never have paid for the product downloads a copyright work for private use. Its not like someone lost anything, and there is by definition no lost revenue. Where's the harm? Surely that's not taking away anything that would have been coming to them had someone not pirated it.

I think a future which this is universal understood by everyone will be one which GPL won't be needed. If there is no copyright or patents to protect, the argument against releasing source code evaporate like a bad idea. Until that day, the answer to "Where's the harm" is two legal words: Copyright and patents.

What if VMWare took the GPL code, improved on some features and did not release it.

Christoph, having not seen the improved code, made changes to the GPL code that ended up somewhat similar to what VMWare did but hid it instead.

VMWare decides to sue Christoph. I am sure the basis for this lawsuit would be weak but VMWare may not care since they have the money while Christoph does not.

I recall the battles SCO did to Linux as you can read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_controversies

This is why I believe it is always important to defend your license because who knows what happens down the road.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about what the GPL license embodies, the harms it intends to mitigate and the motivations behind using such a license as a opposed to the BSD or MIT license which capture your less nuanced sentiment.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

Where is the harm in downloading music and movies of bit-torrent?

Or installing a hacked Photoshop or Windows?

Just because Christoph decided to sell his code for something that isn't money, doesn't mean you can use it without paying. In the case of GPL, you pay with the source code you add to the software.

Christoph has a consultancy business. He uses his GPL contributions to help advertise his abilities.

If companies take his work under GPL and don't contract with him to write new code, they are damaging his income.

You want programmers to earn a living don't you ?

Most other commenters have answered this well enough—the harm is in breaking the licence under which you accepted the code. The use of the GNU GPL on code is explicitly not a donation of that code; it’s a contract attached to the code which has both technical and social implications. (It is also a political statement because of the preamble text, but that is neither here nor there for the purposes of this issue.) So Christoph did not donate his code; he put it out for use with specific terms and conditions. The only way to donate your code for any use whatsoever is to declare it in the public domain. This doesn’t work for some jurisdictions—Germany does not allow for this. This is why SQLite’s license page‡ talks about purchasing a licence (see more on the mailing list°).

‡ http://sqlite.org/copyright.html ° https://www.mail-archive.com/sqlite-users@sqlite.org/msg2437...

There are two points that most people confuse themselves on with respect to the GNU GPL, and they’re captured in this sentence:

> …If someone then uses the work for their own financial benefit, or modifies it without giving you the changes back, what has that deprived you of?…

First, the GNU GPL says nothing about financial gain from the use or modification of the work in question except in terms of mere transmission of the work. That is, when you exercise your right under licence to a copy of the modified code, a company cannot charge you more than it costs them to prepare and send you the modified code. This particular clause comes from the point where the shipment of tapes was used to transmit code rather than the network, because both tapes and shipping had tangible costs.

Second, the GNU GPL says nothing about contributing changes back to the original author. What is required is that people who have (legitimately·) obtained a copy of the modified software are guaranteed the right to request a copy of the modified software’s source code. Further, those people are explicitly permitted under the GNU GPL to further modify and/or redistribute the code and/or their modified versions. The recipient is also permitted to make financial gain of their own, if they choose. (Under the GNU GPL v2, nothing prohibited those modified versions from being useless because you could not load the modified versions onto the target hardware. This is why the GNU GPL v3 has what people called the “TiVo” clause.)

· This leads to the reason for the GNU AGPL, after a fashion. If a company were to make “Lilypond as a service” with their own private modifications, they are not required to either contribute those modifications back to the original project or to their customers, because they are not distributing the software. Someone who hacks into their servers hand obtains the modified Lilypond binaries does not have the right to request the source because the LaaS company did not distribute the software. The Affero GPL is the version of the GNU GPL that requires service companies to make available even the private modifications because it redefines distribution as use, in this case.

I’m not a fan of any of the GNU GPL licences•, but every software developer or company that uses open source or GPLed software needs to have a better understanding of the licences that they are interacting with. Most of them are written in fairly accessible English—and if they aren’t, you probably shouldn’t be using them.

• The cooption of “free” and “freedom” for licences that are highly restrictive is detestable. The effect of these licences may be desirable in a number of cases, but there’s a level of doublespeak and disingenuousness around the GNU GPL family that turns me off.

They violated the license. That's the harm.