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What I don't get about this thread is why people who dislike the GPL would want it to fail here. I'm not the GPL's biggest fan, but why would we want to weaken

• justincormack 12y ago
  It is not about weakening copyright. It is about reducing uncertainty about what the GPL means. GPLv2 is not very well drafted in terms of linking and derived works, and v3 is not much better. And software like Linux is stuck with GPLv2 pretty much forever.
  • Rusky 12y ago
    Right, it's not immediately about copyright, per se. But the GPL relies entirely on copyright and if this ends up setting a precedent that you can't use copyright to enforce the (unfortunately vague?) terms of the GPL, that weakens copyright.
    • nymisunderrated 12y ago
      It's a good question if it does "weaken copyright". That would be a good thing, and a primer in thirty+ years, because it would equally reduce its breadth from proprietary applications. By what I see now (from old and new, but cursory public information), most likely, VMWare has too big resources for a long protracted legal battle, and I don't know if Conservancy can stand to it. That's not the same thing at all.