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Then this will be a good result. You of course may be sued yourself if you have a project using GPL'ed code that doesn't comply with the the current view of GP

Then this will be a good result. You of course may be sued yourself if you have a project using GPL'ed code that doesn't comply with the the current view of GPL (ie, release of encryption keys) or if you infringe your own GPL copyright in some proprietary project (ie, GPL code where user was promised access is in something that you don't want available broadly). This is all good for users for sure for things like open core projects and projects that used to be open but moved away etc

bregma 4y ago
You could only infringe the GPL copyright if you change the GPL license wording itself. The GPL license is a license that allows software using your copyright code to be used by others under certain conditions but at no point does it violate the law and remove your copyright in your own work, so there is no way someone could sue you (and win) for using your copyrighted work as you see fit, including licensing it under a separate distribution license to some third party.
- tempnow987 4y ago
  That's the change here. Historically the GPL distribution language was a condition of the copyright license, so exactly as you said, no one could sue you because there was no separate contract element to end users binding them into a contract with anyone. That is what is so exciting / different about this. When you make available software under the GPL, you have now entered into a CONTRACT (not copyright anymore) with all users that binds you to the terms of the GPL and gives them a right to sue for violations of THEIR independent rights. This is the power of this new ruling, they can then sue you or anyone for breaking this agreement with them. Obviously will take some experience to see how far this can be taken. My understanding is the conservancy may want to try to leverage this to try to get GPLv3 effects into GPLv2 and a few other things the developers of for example Linux are not so hot on.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    > When you make available software under the GPL, you have now entered into a CONTRACT (not copyright anymore) with all users that binds you to the terms of the GPL and gives them a right to sue for violations of THEIR independent rights. Sure, anyone can sue you for anything. However nothing in this removes the copyright holders' ability to issue non-GPL licenses. A user of a product that uses a non-GPL license for that code would still have no standing for that suit.
    - tempnow987 4y ago
      Correct. Historically one could contribute to a GPL project (potentially on a significant level for a corp) but wouldn't worry too much about using it in your own product that was potentially locked down - ie, DRM / motor duty cycle control, rev limits etc. Linus / Linux have a long history of being pretty relaxed about your use cases, with the one key provision that you share your code. Now, the group of people who can sue you is much larger. And some of them (conservancy in particular) may have views that don't align with your GPLv2 interpretation (particularly around tivoization / lock down issues for hardware devices). So if you are contributing too and shipping GPLv2 code - yes, you as the distributor of a larger body of code probably have a higher risk now of being sued.
      - pabs3 4y ago
        Some links on the topic of GPLv2, installation, tivo and GPLv3. The Conservancy position seems to be that GPLv2 requires allowing installation but that what Tivo did (breaking proprietary software when you modify GPL software) is allowed by both GPLv2 and GPLv3. The main reason the GPL exists is to give downstream users the right to run modified versions, so their interpretation of GPLv2 seems reasonable to me. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Safely-Copylefted-Cars-Reexamining-GPLv3-Installation-Information-Requirements-ALS-Bradley-Kuhn-Behan-Webster-1.pdf https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > You could only infringe the GPL copyright if you change the GPL license wording itself. Only if you had a time machine. Once you’ve distributed the code the horse has left the barn. You can impose a new license on new versions of the software though.
shkkmo 4y ago
You seem to have the concepts of copyright and license confused. > you infringe your own GPL copyright in some proprietary project You can't infringe your own copyright. If you own the copyright to the code, you can't violate GPL by using it, even if that code is licensed under GPL. This is because a copyright holder releasing only their code under one license, can also release that code under another, proprietary license.
- tempnow987 4y ago
  That's what's so new about this. There is now a contract (not copyright) element - which binds you and the recipients of your code. If you contribute to an open source project, then use that code in for example a locked down device, a user / conservancy who views that as a violation of GPL can sue you. That's important because historically developers on linux kernel have not agreed with conservancy views on things like encryption keys, and so have not pursued these types of claims and were somewhat unlikely to fully litigate claims against other contributors especially beyond just sharing code back. As the conservancy notes, the universe of potential claimants (even with bogus claims) is now much much larger.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    > If you contribute to an open source project, then use that code in for example a locked down device, a user / conservancy who views that as a violation of GPL can sue you. If it is only code you wrote and you haven't transfered your copyright to the project, then No, this creates no standing. > That's what's so new about this. There is now a contract (not copyright) element - which binds you and the recipients of your code. Incorrect, there is a contract that binds you and recipients of the code under a GPL license. If you receive that code under a different license, that contract doesn't exist. Edit: Let me put it this way. Let's say you create a library and make it available under GPL. Any company that uses your code under that GPL license, has entered a contract with you that allows users of their software to sue them for GPL violations. However, you can also simultaneously offer a non-GPL, proprietary license for that library to paying customers. Those paying customers would not be part of any GPL contract, they would instead have whatever contract they signed with you when buying the proprietary license. The users of that paying customer would have no grounds to sue that paying customer, because that paying customer never agreed to the GPL contract. (OFC if you use other people's code in your library under a GPL license, then you don't have the legal right to offer a propriety license for that code.)

bregma 4y ago

You could only infringe the GPL copyright if you change the GPL license wording itself. The GPL license is a license that allows software using your copyright code to be used by others under certain conditions but at no point does it violate the law and remove your copyright in your own work, so there is no way someone could sue you (and win) for using your copyrighted work as you see fit, including licensing it under a separate distribution license to some third party.

tempnow987 4y ago
That's the change here. Historically the GPL distribution language was a condition of the copyright license, so exactly as you said, no one could sue you because there was no separate contract element to end users binding them into a contract with anyone. That is what is so exciting / different about this. When you make available software under the GPL, you have now entered into a CONTRACT (not copyright anymore) with all users that binds you to the terms of the GPL and gives them a right to sue for violations of THEIR independent rights. This is the power of this new ruling, they can then sue you or anyone for breaking this agreement with them. Obviously will take some experience to see how far this can be taken. My understanding is the conservancy may want to try to leverage this to try to get GPLv3 effects into GPLv2 and a few other things the developers of for example Linux are not so hot on.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  > When you make available software under the GPL, you have now entered into a CONTRACT (not copyright anymore) with all users that binds you to the terms of the GPL and gives them a right to sue for violations of THEIR independent rights. Sure, anyone can sue you for anything. However nothing in this removes the copyright holders' ability to issue non-GPL licenses. A user of a product that uses a non-GPL license for that code would still have no standing for that suit.
  - tempnow987 4y ago
    Correct. Historically one could contribute to a GPL project (potentially on a significant level for a corp) but wouldn't worry too much about using it in your own product that was potentially locked down - ie, DRM / motor duty cycle control, rev limits etc. Linus / Linux have a long history of being pretty relaxed about your use cases, with the one key provision that you share your code. Now, the group of people who can sue you is much larger. And some of them (conservancy in particular) may have views that don't align with your GPLv2 interpretation (particularly around tivoization / lock down issues for hardware devices). So if you are contributing too and shipping GPLv2 code - yes, you as the distributor of a larger body of code probably have a higher risk now of being sued.
    - pabs3 4y ago
      Some links on the topic of GPLv2, installation, tivo and GPLv3. The Conservancy position seems to be that GPLv2 requires allowing installation but that what Tivo did (breaking proprietary software when you modify GPL software) is allowed by both GPLv2 and GPLv3. The main reason the GPL exists is to give downstream users the right to run modified versions, so their interpretation of GPLv2 seems reasonable to me. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Safely-Copylefted-Cars-Reexamining-GPLv3-Installation-Information-Requirements-ALS-Bradley-Kuhn-Behan-Webster-1.pdf https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...
mr_toad 4y ago
> You could only infringe the GPL copyright if you change the GPL license wording itself. Only if you had a time machine. Once you’ve distributed the code the horse has left the barn. You can impose a new license on new versions of the software though.

shkkmo 4y ago

You seem to have the concepts of copyright and license confused. > you infringe your own GPL copyright in some proprietary project You can't infringe your own copyright. If you own the copyright to the code, you can't violate GPL by using it, even if that code is licensed under GPL. This is because a copyright holder releasing only their code under one license, can also release that code under another, proprietary license.

tempnow987 4y ago
That's what's so new about this. There is now a contract (not copyright) element - which binds you and the recipients of your code. If you contribute to an open source project, then use that code in for example a locked down device, a user / conservancy who views that as a violation of GPL can sue you. That's important because historically developers on linux kernel have not agreed with conservancy views on things like encryption keys, and so have not pursued these types of claims and were somewhat unlikely to fully litigate claims against other contributors especially beyond just sharing code back. As the conservancy notes, the universe of potential claimants (even with bogus claims) is now much much larger.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  > If you contribute to an open source project, then use that code in for example a locked down device, a user / conservancy who views that as a violation of GPL can sue you. If it is only code you wrote and you haven't transfered your copyright to the project, then No, this creates no standing. > That's what's so new about this. There is now a contract (not copyright) element - which binds you and the recipients of your code. Incorrect, there is a contract that binds you and recipients of the code under a GPL license. If you receive that code under a different license, that contract doesn't exist. Edit: Let me put it this way. Let's say you create a library and make it available under GPL. Any company that uses your code under that GPL license, has entered a contract with you that allows users of their software to sue them for GPL violations. However, you can also simultaneously offer a non-GPL, proprietary license for that library to paying customers. Those paying customers would not be part of any GPL contract, they would instead have whatever contract they signed with you when buying the proprietary license. The users of that paying customer would have no grounds to sue that paying customer, because that paying customer never agreed to the GPL contract. (OFC if you use other people's code in your library under a GPL license, then you don't have the legal right to offer a propriety license for that code.)