2 ms·

If the judge has read the GPL preamble, they would understand the intent of the license, and I would guess that would make it a 90/10 chance of requiring a work

by pabs3 1y ago

If the judge has read the GPL preamble, they would understand the intent of the license, and I would guess that would make it a 90/10 chance of requiring a working install method.

sokoloff 1y ago
IANAL, but my understand is that legally, the preamble is not part of the terms of the copyright license itself and if the preamble can be construed to provide something, but the actual license does not contain it, then it's not part of the license terms. I'm willing to bet a pretty large amount that any judge with such a case before them will read the preamble in the course of the proceedings.
ranger_danger 1y ago
The GPL also says: > Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License I am interpreting this to mean that "installation" does not count as any of those things. It even says "The act of running the Program is not restricted", and to me that means I am free to restrict how/if the program can run in the first place, which I believe is what TiVo did. Linus even admits "Tivo never did anything wrong", and honestly from a license perspective I'd rather be on the good side of whoever wrote the thing I'm using, as opposed to an outsider who thinks I might be using the license wrong, and is no party to any case I might be involved in. Either way this Brad guy seems to go on a lot about how he thinks everyone else is wrong, while also never showing any evidence that his interpretations have ever played out successfully in court... so I think it's at least safe to say that for now, "we don't know" if installation is covered or not, until it's actually tested in court. And even then, one judge may interpret it differently than the next one, so maybe there can't be a universal answer unless the license is modified to be more clear.

2 ms·

If the judge has read the GPL preamble, they would understand the intent of the license, and I would guess that would make it a 90/10 chance of requiring a work

by pabs3 1y ago

If the judge has read the GPL preamble, they would understand the intent of the license, and I would guess that would make it a 90/10 chance of requiring a working install method.

sokoloff 1y ago
IANAL, but my understand is that legally, the preamble is not part of the terms of the copyright license itself and if the preamble can be construed to provide something, but the actual license does not contain it, then it's not part of the license terms. I'm willing to bet a pretty large amount that any judge with such a case before them will read the preamble in the course of the proceedings.
ranger_danger 1y ago
The GPL also says: > Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License I am interpreting this to mean that "installation" does not count as any of those things. It even says "The act of running the Program is not restricted", and to me that means I am free to restrict how/if the program can run in the first place, which I believe is what TiVo did. Linus even admits "Tivo never did anything wrong", and honestly from a license perspective I'd rather be on the good side of whoever wrote the thing I'm using, as opposed to an outsider who thinks I might be using the license wrong, and is no party to any case I might be involved in. Either way this Brad guy seems to go on a lot about how he thinks everyone else is wrong, while also never showing any evidence that his interpretations have ever played out successfully in court... so I think it's at least safe to say that for now, "we don't know" if installation is covered or not, until it's actually tested in court. And even then, one judge may interpret it differently than the next one, so maybe there can't be a universal answer unless the license is modified to be more clear.