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Could I then download a zip of torvalds/linux from github and use it without abiding by the license as it’s never thrown in my face?

by mimsee 5y ago

bitwize 5y ago
Yes! Unlike other licenses, the GPL explicitly covers distribution, not use.
karatinversion 5y ago
You can do that anyway, but if you wanted to break the license by distributing modified copies without providing sources, you would fall foul of copyright law.
alanfranz 5y ago
When you open the source the license is there.
kazinator 5y ago
Yes. The GPL is not a license which dictates how you can use software, such as that you must not read it, or use ideas from it. EULA restrictions like "no reverse engineering" are not rooted in copyright law, and borrowing ideas is in the realm of patents. EULA's try to leverage copyright law in order to impose non-copyright restrictions, using the concept that if you violate any of the arbitrary non-copyright restrictions, the thereby violated license lapses, and that license is the document which allows you to have a copy of the software (not the fact that you paid).
- bo1024 5y ago
  I always found this aspect of 'copyright' very confusing. I still don't understand the legal basis here.
  - kazinator 5y ago
    I don't fully understand it myself, because if you have a copy of the work (e.g. purchased copy of some proprietary software) the entity which distributed that to you was the copyright-holding purveyor. They did the copying, using their reserved right to do so. No matter what yo udo with the copyrighted work, if you're not copying it, you're not infringing on copyright. The idea that your right to have a copy can lapse due to violating the EULA has holes in it, because copyright isn't about the right to have a copy, but about the right to produce and redistribute copies. For instance, on a bit of a tangent here, if you steal a book out of someone's backpack, that is not copyright infringement, and cannot be. You didn't copy anything. The proprietary EULA wants the law to believe that you're stealing if you continue to use the software after violating the agreement. But without connecting that to the concept of copyright infringement, the accusation has no basis, since you're just using what you paid for it. Disassembling a binary executable to understand it is exactly the same as reading a book to understand it. Copyright is made for books and such.
collegeburner 5y ago
This is why people start putting license in a big comment at the top of source files. Also why when I write sites I require the create user call to include a "acceptTosAndLicense" or similar field set to true.

Could I then download a zip of torvalds/linux from github and use it without abiding by the license as it’s never thrown in my face?

by mimsee 5y ago

Could I then download a zip of torvalds/linux from github and use it without abiding by the license as it’s never thrown in my face?

bitwize 5y ago

Yes! Unlike other licenses, the GPL explicitly covers distribution, not use.

karatinversion 5y ago

You can do that anyway, but if you wanted to break the license by distributing modified copies without providing sources, you would fall foul of copyright law.

alanfranz 5y ago

When you open the source the license is there.

kazinator 5y ago

Yes. The GPL is not a license which dictates how you can use software, such as that you must not read it, or use ideas from it. EULA restrictions like "no reverse engineering" are not rooted in copyright law, and borrowing ideas is in the realm of patents. EULA's try to leverage copyright law in order to impose non-copyright restrictions, using the concept that if you violate any of the arbitrary non-copyright restrictions, the thereby violated license lapses, and that license is the document which allows you to have a copy of the software (not the fact that you paid).

bo1024 5y ago
I always found this aspect of 'copyright' very confusing. I still don't understand the legal basis here.
- kazinator 5y ago
  I don't fully understand it myself, because if you have a copy of the work (e.g. purchased copy of some proprietary software) the entity which distributed that to you was the copyright-holding purveyor. They did the copying, using their reserved right to do so. No matter what yo udo with the copyrighted work, if you're not copying it, you're not infringing on copyright. The idea that your right to have a copy can lapse due to violating the EULA has holes in it, because copyright isn't about the right to have a copy, but about the right to produce and redistribute copies. For instance, on a bit of a tangent here, if you steal a book out of someone's backpack, that is not copyright infringement, and cannot be. You didn't copy anything. The proprietary EULA wants the law to believe that you're stealing if you continue to use the software after violating the agreement. But without connecting that to the concept of copyright infringement, the accusation has no basis, since you're just using what you paid for it. Disassembling a binary executable to understand it is exactly the same as reading a book to understand it. Copyright is made for books and such.

collegeburner 5y ago

This is why people start putting license in a big comment at the top of source files. Also why when I write sites I require the create user call to include a "acceptTosAndLicense" or similar field set to true.