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Interested in a legal take based on case law. Looks like this is a reasoning from first principles from the underlying law, but it doesn't consider what courts

Interested in a legal take based on case law. Looks like this is a reasoning from first principles from the underlying law, but it doesn't consider what courts have said on the matter

jsiepkes 3y ago
This is why I don't like GPL-like licenses; Only a court ruling will give you a degree of certainty. Now sure, you could argue that's the case for all OSS. But the GPL family of licenses leave a lot of legal wiggle room. Unlike for example file based licenses such as the MPL or CDDL. The LGPL is also an interesting one. People tend to think it's less strict then the GPL. However it has a clause which says you need to provide the means for someone to change the LGPL library and reintegrate those changes in your work. How does that even work for a statically linked binary?
- f1shy 3y ago
  Is not that the case for basically anything? At the end, if there is a conflict, you have to go to court, and then the better lawyer will win.
- __david__ 3y ago
  You also ship a .o file that includes everything _except_ the LGPL-ed library. The user can re-link against a newer .a to get a new linked executable. I'm not sure I've ever actually seen it done though… And that's just C—what does it mean for something like Go or Rust where it's not really easy to get partially linked program? No idea :-).
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  In practice, you can’t statically link. Some LGPL libraries explicitly include a static linking exception.
  - okanat 3y ago
    You can. At least with C and C++. It is just tedious. You can provide the object files of the closed program or reduce it down to single object file.
- phh 3y ago
  > The LGPL is also an interesting one. People tend to think it's less strict then the GPL. However it has a clause which says you need to provide the means for someone to change the LGPL library and reintegrate those changes in your work. Isn't that true only for LGPLv3? This requirement also happen on GPLv3.
- dkersten 3y ago
  > How does that even work for a statically linked binary? I learned it this way: LGPL is basically GPL unless you dynamically link. Sure, there are workarounds to make it compatible with static linking, as others have mentioned, but unless you’re willing to jump through those hoops, LGPL restricts you to only dynamic linking.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- braza 3y ago
  At least in some places in Europe, at the time that you have some dispute like this you will need to prepare and disclose provisions for your shareholders and place that in your balance sheet as a potential liability. I've worked in a company that entered in a dispute with Microsoft regarding licensing of SQL Server, and since the legal dispute was more than USD 2 million our CFO was obligated to place that as a balance sheet loss under legal provisions. Eventually we won the case and the "money" went back to the cash flow.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jillesvangurp 3y ago
I think that is the point. This license hasn't been battle tested in a court room that much. And until it is, we can't really know what is and isn't enforceable. People supposing it should be interpreted this way or that way, mostly aren't lawyers. So, that means there's a good chance they are wrong. But more importantly, how important is it for you to be right/wrong about your own interpretation? Of course a bit academic for most developers. But for most companies that don't like uncertainty around the topic of who actually owns their core intellectual property, this is a good reason to blanket ban the use of anything AGPL licensed. Personally, I avoid the anything AGPL licensed for a different reason. I write software for a living and with the goal to profit from that directly or indirectly. People using AGPL seem to be signalling that they don't appreciate other people using their software for profit. So, I respect that and ignore their work. Plenty of more liberally licensed software out there where the developers seem to actively encourage people to use their software. I like feeling welcome as a user. And I don't feel welcome using AGPL software. So, I don't.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  > This license hasn't been battle tested in a court room that much. This is kind of considered a feature, isn't it? Every time a disagreement is taken to court, it's a failure of all sides. Courts are expensive and a time waste, so we create contracts that avoid all of that to try to get parties to work together without the courts. AGPL has been enforceable, in general, because of all the case law around general copyright law.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Depends if you want a license you can rely on on both sides with zero ambiguity on what is and isn't enforcable, having a few court cases confirm this is nice. The lack of court cases has a perfectly reasonable explanation: no serious company with a legal department would bother to touch anything licensed this way. The companies most likely to be able to represent themselves in a court are also the most likely to have a policy of just blanket banning anything with this license. As a means of alienating end users, the AGPL is an enormous success. As a means of actually enforcing what it says, it's largely unproven.

Interested in a legal take based on case law. Looks like this is a reasoning from first principles from the underlying law, but it doesn't consider what courts have said on the matter

jsiepkes 3y ago

This is why I don't like GPL-like licenses; Only a court ruling will give you a degree of certainty. Now sure, you could argue that's the case for all OSS. But the GPL family of licenses leave a lot of legal wiggle room. Unlike for example file based licenses such as the MPL or CDDL. The LGPL is also an interesting one. People tend to think it's less strict then the GPL. However it has a clause which says you need to provide the means for someone to change the LGPL library and reintegrate those changes in your work. How does that even work for a statically linked binary?

f1shy 3y ago
Is not that the case for basically anything? At the end, if there is a conflict, you have to go to court, and then the better lawyer will win.
__david__ 3y ago
You also ship a .o file that includes everything _except_ the LGPL-ed library. The user can re-link against a newer .a to get a new linked executable. I'm not sure I've ever actually seen it done though… And that's just C—what does it mean for something like Go or Rust where it's not really easy to get partially linked program? No idea :-).
dontlaugh 3y ago
In practice, you can’t statically link. Some LGPL libraries explicitly include a static linking exception.
- okanat 3y ago
  You can. At least with C and C++. It is just tedious. You can provide the object files of the closed program or reduce it down to single object file.
phh 3y ago
> The LGPL is also an interesting one. People tend to think it's less strict then the GPL. However it has a clause which says you need to provide the means for someone to change the LGPL library and reintegrate those changes in your work. Isn't that true only for LGPLv3? This requirement also happen on GPLv3.
dkersten 3y ago
> How does that even work for a statically linked binary? I learned it this way: LGPL is basically GPL unless you dynamically link. Sure, there are workarounds to make it compatible with static linking, as others have mentioned, but unless you’re willing to jump through those hoops, LGPL restricts you to only dynamic linking.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
braza 3y ago
At least in some places in Europe, at the time that you have some dispute like this you will need to prepare and disclose provisions for your shareholders and place that in your balance sheet as a potential liability. I've worked in a company that entered in a dispute with Microsoft regarding licensing of SQL Server, and since the legal dispute was more than USD 2 million our CFO was obligated to place that as a balance sheet loss under legal provisions. Eventually we won the case and the "money" went back to the cash flow.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jillesvangurp 3y ago

I think that is the point. This license hasn't been battle tested in a court room that much. And until it is, we can't really know what is and isn't enforceable. People supposing it should be interpreted this way or that way, mostly aren't lawyers. So, that means there's a good chance they are wrong. But more importantly, how important is it for you to be right/wrong about your own interpretation? Of course a bit academic for most developers. But for most companies that don't like uncertainty around the topic of who actually owns their core intellectual property, this is a good reason to blanket ban the use of anything AGPL licensed. Personally, I avoid the anything AGPL licensed for a different reason. I write software for a living and with the goal to profit from that directly or indirectly. People using AGPL seem to be signalling that they don't appreciate other people using their software for profit. So, I respect that and ignore their work. Plenty of more liberally licensed software out there where the developers seem to actively encourage people to use their software. I like feeling welcome as a user. And I don't feel welcome using AGPL software. So, I don't.

madeofpalk 3y ago
> This license hasn't been battle tested in a court room that much. This is kind of considered a feature, isn't it? Every time a disagreement is taken to court, it's a failure of all sides. Courts are expensive and a time waste, so we create contracts that avoid all of that to try to get parties to work together without the courts. AGPL has been enforceable, in general, because of all the case law around general copyright law.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Depends if you want a license you can rely on on both sides with zero ambiguity on what is and isn't enforcable, having a few court cases confirm this is nice. The lack of court cases has a perfectly reasonable explanation: no serious company with a legal department would bother to touch anything licensed this way. The companies most likely to be able to represent themselves in a court are also the most likely to have a policy of just blanket banning anything with this license. As a means of alienating end users, the AGPL is an enormous success. As a means of actually enforcing what it says, it's largely unproven.