3 ms·

From the GPLv3, section 7: “If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a te

From the GPLv3, section 7: “If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.”

DannyBee 10y ago
Dragonwriter is correct about GPLv2. You are correct about GPlv3. FWIW: This does not actually make it true :) I do not believe this is actually sufficient to override superseding written contracts with a complete integration clause. I think those superseding written contracts just cause a license violation instead. (IE the end result would be "you would be in breach of the written contract with the restriction", "they would be in breach of the GPL"). The GPL attempts to create privity through licensing through the original licensor, in order to try to make this work. It's not clear this will be successful in a court of law, however (I suspect this also varies by country). I believe the drafting committee that looked into this came to the same conclusion.
- nkurz 10y ago
  This is the same way adding an explicit separate rights grant does not make a new license, it is just an explicit separate set of rights. Them's some strikingly lawyerly semantics. If I were to release a work without a license (governed by the default of copyright law), and then explicitly grant a few new rights that don't exist in the absence of that "set of rights", non-lawyers might be inclined to think of this as a "new license". Are you saying that it's a not a license if you unilaterally grant rights without requiring anything of the user, or is there something more subtle here? FWIW: This does not actually make it true :) Speaking of that, what's the extent of case law for open-source licenses? Is there a compilation somewhere of decisions that make for good background reading?
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    "Them's some strikingly lawyerly semantics." The law explicitly makes a difference between consistent additional terms/amendments and new agreements :) So i'm not shocked you find it this way, but it is what it is ... Basically, there is a difference between having an agreement that happens to be spread out over multiple things, and two separate agreements. If you next try to ask where that line is, without a complete integration clause, the answer is basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ without going to court. You will get different answers from different folks. "If I were to release a work without a license (governed by the default of copyright law), and then explicitly grant a few new rights that don't exist in the absence of that "set of rights", non-lawyers might be inclined to think of this as a "new license"." Well, this is a slightly different case. In this case, you had no rights at all, and you are giving rights for the first time. This probably semantically would be viewed as a new license. In the LLVM case, there is a license agreement. It is being supplemented :) "Speaking of that, what's the extent of case law for open-source licenses? Is there a compilation somewhere of decisions that make for good background reading? " Sadly, no. There's basically only one or two decisions you can find at all. The rest is basically viewpoints based on contract law.
    - nkurz 10y ago
      "Speaking of that, what's the extent of case law for open-source licenses? Is there a compilation somewhere of decisions that make for good background reading? " Sadly, no. There's basically only one or two decisions you can find at all. Something is better than nothing. Can you name the ones that you think are relevant and readable? Thanks!
      - DannyBee 10y ago
        Sure. On GPL issues, you have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer and all the related appeals. This covers whether or not license violations are copyright infringement or breach of contract (something OSS lawyers felt was not settled for some reason, but has actually been well settled out in hollywood for many many years), what damages are for GPL if nobody is charging, etc. There is also busybox v. westinghouse and some other german cases as well i will try to pull out and paste links to here when i get a chance.

DannyBee 10y ago

Dragonwriter is correct about GPLv2. You are correct about GPlv3. FWIW: This does not actually make it true :) I do not believe this is actually sufficient to override superseding written contracts with a complete integration clause. I think those superseding written contracts just cause a license violation instead. (IE the end result would be "you would be in breach of the written contract with the restriction", "they would be in breach of the GPL"). The GPL attempts to create privity through licensing through the original licensor, in order to try to make this work. It's not clear this will be successful in a court of law, however (I suspect this also varies by country). I believe the drafting committee that looked into this came to the same conclusion.

nkurz 10y ago
This is the same way adding an explicit separate rights grant does not make a new license, it is just an explicit separate set of rights. Them's some strikingly lawyerly semantics. If I were to release a work without a license (governed by the default of copyright law), and then explicitly grant a few new rights that don't exist in the absence of that "set of rights", non-lawyers might be inclined to think of this as a "new license". Are you saying that it's a not a license if you unilaterally grant rights without requiring anything of the user, or is there something more subtle here? FWIW: This does not actually make it true :) Speaking of that, what's the extent of case law for open-source licenses? Is there a compilation somewhere of decisions that make for good background reading?
- DannyBee 10y ago
  "Them's some strikingly lawyerly semantics." The law explicitly makes a difference between consistent additional terms/amendments and new agreements :) So i'm not shocked you find it this way, but it is what it is ... Basically, there is a difference between having an agreement that happens to be spread out over multiple things, and two separate agreements. If you next try to ask where that line is, without a complete integration clause, the answer is basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ without going to court. You will get different answers from different folks. "If I were to release a work without a license (governed by the default of copyright law), and then explicitly grant a few new rights that don't exist in the absence of that "set of rights", non-lawyers might be inclined to think of this as a "new license"." Well, this is a slightly different case. In this case, you had no rights at all, and you are giving rights for the first time. This probably semantically would be viewed as a new license. In the LLVM case, there is a license agreement. It is being supplemented :) "Speaking of that, what's the extent of case law for open-source licenses? Is there a compilation somewhere of decisions that make for good background reading? " Sadly, no. There's basically only one or two decisions you can find at all. The rest is basically viewpoints based on contract law.
  - nkurz 10y ago
    "Speaking of that, what's the extent of case law for open-source licenses? Is there a compilation somewhere of decisions that make for good background reading? " Sadly, no. There's basically only one or two decisions you can find at all. Something is better than nothing. Can you name the ones that you think are relevant and readable? Thanks!
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      Sure. On GPL issues, you have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer and all the related appeals. This covers whether or not license violations are copyright infringement or breach of contract (something OSS lawyers felt was not settled for some reason, but has actually been well settled out in hollywood for many many years), what damages are for GPL if nobody is charging, etc. There is also busybox v. westinghouse and some other german cases as well i will try to pull out and paste links to here when i get a chance.