4 ms·

Is there a way to buy oneself out of GPL license? I beleive there's not.

throwaway934876 5y ago
The authors can re-license right, even for one (paying) customer? They could also pay for the promise not to sue? IANAL.
- daptaq 5y ago
  I remember reading that it should be able for users to sue instead of the author, if they cannot ccess the source of GPL'ed software.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    The Software Freedom Conservancy are trying to set that precedent right now in their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations in their televisions: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
    - daptaq 5y ago
      Yes, that was what I had in mind. Thank you!
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    I’m fact it’s only the users who have standing to request the source. The author’s have standing to sue for copyright infringement.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      Not at all true. It's copyright infringement if you're not following a license contract, of which the GPL is.
      - vlovich123 5y ago
        The GPL contract only says you have to distribute source to the users you give binaries to. The only people who can ask for said source are the people receiving those binaries and the only people who have standing to sue when that doesn’t happen is the copyright owners. That’s why you can use GPL software in your private CI system and not need to give anyone the source code.
        pabs3 5y ago
        Hopefully the SFC lawsuit against Vizio will set the precedent that any recipient of GPL binaries has standing to sue: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
        colejohnson66 5y ago
        I see I misread your comment. My apologies.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  Only if the project owns the copyright or otherwise has been granted such powers in their contribution agreement. Otherwise, no. They’d have to get approval from every autho/rewrite the code they don’t have a license for to provide a copy that isn’t GPL.
kaetemi 5y ago
Yea. Pay someone to write it from scratch. Basically, it's practically (not ethically) fair game to use GPL in commercial software, until someone catches you. The only repercussion that the license provides is that your license is revoked until you resolve the violation (for the first violation). Meanwhile, you got to release your product, and by the time you got caught you've had enough time to implement it yourself.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  That’s not the only repercussion. They can sue for copyright infringement and there can be large fines.
  - johnebgd 5y ago
    Not a lawyer but seems like source projects would have a hard time showing damages since they don’t charge for the software.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      I don't believe you need to demonstrate specific damages for a copyright infringement case in the US. You only need to demonstrate two facts: that you are the legitimate holder of the copyright, and that the other party did in fact infringe.
      - VRay 5y ago
        It's pretty funny that corporations can levy a multi-million dollar judgement against a single mother for pirating a CD, but then when the tables are turned, it's no big deal
    - drran 5y ago
      Suppose, I'm an author of GPL software. I think that my code costs $1M. I expected that if someone uses my software, according to license, then he will release his software under same license for me. Now, somebody used my $1M project in his $100M project in violation of my GPL license. My losses are $100M.
wolrah 5y ago
The GPL itself offers no such option, but if the copyright holder(s) choose to they may offer whatever alternatives they choose. Many significant open source applications are offered under this model such as MySQL. The catch is that the more copyright holders there are the more likely it is that someone who has contributed a non-trivial part of the project will not agree, in which case their work would have to be removed/replaced to allow for relicensing. Large projects that have not required a CLA from contributors are effectively impossible to relicense.
EamonnMR 5y ago
Class action settlement?
ashtonkem 5y ago
You can legally dual license if you have ownership over all the code in question. This is common for open source industrial software; pay for a different license so you can embed it in a closed source project. The GPL doesn’t restrict you from offering the same code with a different license if you own it. Often the issue is that some projects don’t require contributors to sign over copyright ownership as part of contributing. So you have a project that’s licensed uniformly, but each contributor still owns their individual contribution. Unwinding this after the fact can be a nightmare, as it involves either finding every contributor and asking them to sign over their code, or manually removing every bit of code you don’t own as a project. This is why a lot of bigger projects require you sign a contributors agreement that assigns copyright before you can contribute to the main repo. Doing this in advance saves the project a lot of headaches down the road if dual licensing is deemed useful. This is true even if you want to license under two different open source licenses, as only the copyright holder can change the license.

The authors can re-license right, even for one (paying) customer? They could also pay for the promise not to sue? IANAL.

daptaq 5y ago
I remember reading that it should be able for users to sue instead of the author, if they cannot ccess the source of GPL'ed software.
- pabs3 5y ago
  The Software Freedom Conservancy are trying to set that precedent right now in their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations in their televisions: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
  - daptaq 5y ago
    Yes, that was what I had in mind. Thank you!
- vlovich123 5y ago
  I’m fact it’s only the users who have standing to request the source. The author’s have standing to sue for copyright infringement.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Not at all true. It's copyright infringement if you're not following a license contract, of which the GPL is.
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      The GPL contract only says you have to distribute source to the users you give binaries to. The only people who can ask for said source are the people receiving those binaries and the only people who have standing to sue when that doesn’t happen is the copyright owners. That’s why you can use GPL software in your private CI system and not need to give anyone the source code.
      - pabs3 5y ago
        Hopefully the SFC lawsuit against Vizio will set the precedent that any recipient of GPL binaries has standing to sue: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
      - colejohnson66 5y ago
        I see I misread your comment. My apologies.
vlovich123 5y ago
Only if the project owns the copyright or otherwise has been granted such powers in their contribution agreement. Otherwise, no. They’d have to get approval from every autho/rewrite the code they don’t have a license for to provide a copy that isn’t GPL.

kaetemi 5y ago

Yea. Pay someone to write it from scratch. Basically, it's practically (not ethically) fair game to use GPL in commercial software, until someone catches you. The only repercussion that the license provides is that your license is revoked until you resolve the violation (for the first violation). Meanwhile, you got to release your product, and by the time you got caught you've had enough time to implement it yourself.

vlovich123 5y ago
That’s not the only repercussion. They can sue for copyright infringement and there can be large fines.
- johnebgd 5y ago
  Not a lawyer but seems like source projects would have a hard time showing damages since they don’t charge for the software.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    I don't believe you need to demonstrate specific damages for a copyright infringement case in the US. You only need to demonstrate two facts: that you are the legitimate holder of the copyright, and that the other party did in fact infringe.
    - VRay 5y ago
      It's pretty funny that corporations can levy a multi-million dollar judgement against a single mother for pirating a CD, but then when the tables are turned, it's no big deal
  - drran 5y ago
    Suppose, I'm an author of GPL software. I think that my code costs $1M. I expected that if someone uses my software, according to license, then he will release his software under same license for me. Now, somebody used my $1M project in his $100M project in violation of my GPL license. My losses are $100M.

wolrah 5y ago

The GPL itself offers no such option, but if the copyright holder(s) choose to they may offer whatever alternatives they choose. Many significant open source applications are offered under this model such as MySQL. The catch is that the more copyright holders there are the more likely it is that someone who has contributed a non-trivial part of the project will not agree, in which case their work would have to be removed/replaced to allow for relicensing. Large projects that have not required a CLA from contributors are effectively impossible to relicense.

EamonnMR 5y ago

Class action settlement?

ashtonkem 5y ago

You can legally dual license if you have ownership over all the code in question. This is common for open source industrial software; pay for a different license so you can embed it in a closed source project. The GPL doesn’t restrict you from offering the same code with a different license if you own it. Often the issue is that some projects don’t require contributors to sign over copyright ownership as part of contributing. So you have a project that’s licensed uniformly, but each contributor still owns their individual contribution. Unwinding this after the fact can be a nightmare, as it involves either finding every contributor and asking them to sign over their code, or manually removing every bit of code you don’t own as a project. This is why a lot of bigger projects require you sign a contributors agreement that assigns copyright before you can contribute to the main repo. Doing this in advance saves the project a lot of headaches down the road if dual licensing is deemed useful. This is true even if you want to license under two different open source licenses, as only the copyright holder can change the license.