3 ms·

I hope I'm not misunderstanding this, but isn't the current arrangement perfectly valid under GPL? GPL states: - If I provided _modified_ binaries - I also ha

I hope I'm not misunderstanding this, but isn't the current arrangement perfectly valid under GPL? GPL states: - If I provided _modified_ binaries - I also have to provide the sources That's what's happening now for people that can download the binaries. What happened before was: - _Anyone_ could download the sources (Not a GPL requirement). So, now, IIUC if you can download the binaries you can download the sources. If you can't download the binaries (not a customer, for instance) you can't download the sources. The contract termination is not related to GPL in this sense.

tm-guimaraes 3y ago
GPL grants you the right to redistribute those binaries and sources. The contract is terminated if you exercise your GPL rights. One of GPL clauses is that you can't add more restrictions. Terminating a contract seems like a restriction to me. Also, terminating a contract is very different from not renewing one.
BirAdam 3y ago
Nah. GPLv3: > You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License. Given that there are a mix of licenses in use on Red Hat's distribution, they could be in a world of hurt. There's GPL, GPLv3, LGPL, CDDL, Apache, and so on. These all have different terms. GPLv3 in particular is the one that I think gets legally interesting, and I think it would be a neat court case. Courts have recently taken up issues like non-compete agreements, and of course the enforceability of various contracts and licenses has always been a topic for interesting court cases. This would be the same way. Is the GPLv3 actually enforceable? Can you legally have a license or contract forcing action on the recipient of a piece of IP? To say that RH did nothing wrong might actually come down to the legal fund at IBM of course, since courts are neither fair nor free.
josephcsible 3y ago
The issue with the GPL isn't about being able to download source code. It's unambiguous that they are complying with that requirement. The issue is the sentence "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." They're violating that by disallowing the people they do give the source code to from publicly mirroring it (on pain of terminating their contract).

tm-guimaraes 3y ago

GPL grants you the right to redistribute those binaries and sources. The contract is terminated if you exercise your GPL rights. One of GPL clauses is that you can't add more restrictions. Terminating a contract seems like a restriction to me. Also, terminating a contract is very different from not renewing one.

BirAdam 3y ago

Nah. GPLv3: > You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License. Given that there are a mix of licenses in use on Red Hat's distribution, they could be in a world of hurt. There's GPL, GPLv3, LGPL, CDDL, Apache, and so on. These all have different terms. GPLv3 in particular is the one that I think gets legally interesting, and I think it would be a neat court case. Courts have recently taken up issues like non-compete agreements, and of course the enforceability of various contracts and licenses has always been a topic for interesting court cases. This would be the same way. Is the GPLv3 actually enforceable? Can you legally have a license or contract forcing action on the recipient of a piece of IP? To say that RH did nothing wrong might actually come down to the legal fund at IBM of course, since courts are neither fair nor free.

josephcsible 3y ago

The issue with the GPL isn't about being able to download source code. It's unambiguous that they are complying with that requirement. The issue is the sentence "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." They're violating that by disallowing the people they do give the source code to from publicly mirroring it (on pain of terminating their contract).