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The copyright holder is free to use whatever license they wish, yes. But if they choose to use the GPL, they must abide by its terms. They aren't free to rewr
by mikegerwitz 10y ago
The copyright holder is free to use whatever license they wish, yes.
But if they choose to use the GPL, they must abide by its terms. They aren't free to rewrite parts of it---their license would then be a derivative work of the GPL, which isn't permissible. Section 7 would have to be modified to say that the user can't remove such terms.
If they use the GPL and impose extra terms, state that Section 7 is invalid, then there is a contradiction in the license, and it'd be up to a court to decide. I'm sure any sensible lawyer would tell them that they should use a different license; it's senseless using the GPL if you're going to try to do such a thing.
- beevai142 10y agoI don't think Section 7 enables automatically ignoring non-permissive additional terms --- the "additional permissions" are defined in the section to be exceptions from conditions, not as further restrictions. Interpreting what exactly happens in this case probably requires a lawyer. It's of course the case that using GPL and adding such clauses does not make any sense. GNU parallel does not appear to be doing this, as the license text is unmodified GPL with no additional clauses.
- mikegerwitz 10y agoThe exception would be on Section 2: "This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work."
- rpdillon 10y agoFurther down in section 7: > All other non-permissive additional terms are considered “further restrictions” within the meaning of section 10. 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.