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by beat 3330 days ago
A friend of mine, who is a software engineer turned IP lawyer, made a good point about the GPL - the reason it "has never been challenged in court" isn't about uncertainty, but about certainty. The GPL is based on the most simple, bedrock copyright law. Despite being a clever hack, there's nothing legally exotic about it.

Any judge in the country or anywhere else would laugh a GPL challenge right out of court. Any any IP lawyer reading it would tell their client that that's what's going to happen if they try to challenge it. That's why it's never been fully tested in court... no need.
1 comments
sounds 3330 days ago
Ah, if only.

To the first point: the GPL is not used nearly as much as it should be. Thus there's still a strong selection bias on court cases in general being about the GPL, since the GPL is not selected very often. (And there's a reason it is avoided: legal counsel to large companies frequently describe the GPL as "untested." This happens still today, which is frankly ridiculous in the light of all that the Software Freedom Law Center, FSF, etc. have done)

To the second point: any court proceeding introduces a huge amount of uncertainty. Costs are up-front, payback may come in a decade or more after all routes of appeal have been exhausted. Judgments are frequently overturned on technicalities; even if the technicalities are flawless the GPL is not unassailable.

On a personal note, I am unequivocally in favor of using Free Software further and wider than it has been used. In every potential conflict of interest, I think there is much to be said for attempting to settle with a "GPL violator" using amicable means, even if it takes a long time. I view "GPL violations" as free advertising -- don't be shy about publishing the proceedings, though doing it with some taste may help the party come into compliance, their actions should speak for themselves!

People use GPL software, extensively.

Any use of GPL software is a compliment to the software authors.

Any contribution back to the software will improve it for everyone.

etc.

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eridius 3330 days ago
Big companies don't avoid GPL because it's "untested". Big companies avoid GPL because it's actually quite dangerous for them to use. GPLv2 only so far as if they accidentally taint their proprietary code with it, then they need to open up their code (which is bad enough). But GPLv3 is really fucking scary. As it was once put to me, if a single GPLv3 binary accidentally makes it onto the OS image for iOS, Apple would then legally be required to release the master signing key to the whole world, completely destroying the whole security model of iOS and screwing everybody (not just Apple but also Apple's users who rely on that security). Plus the patent clause in GPLv3 is also nasty.
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sounds 3330 days ago
Can you point to actual statements by any company on "why we avoid the GPL?"

Here is a great example of Google reversing course on the AGPL (when they reversed their decision to ban AGPL code from Google Code in Sep 2010):

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/google_on_open_sour...

Apple also _still_ ships GPL code in macOS Sierra 10.12:

http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/

People use GPL software, extensively.

Any use of GPL software is a compliment to the software authors.

Any contribution back to the software will improve it for everyone. Would it really be so hard for Apple to maintain a GPLv2 fork of bash that backported the security fixes, a la RedHat?

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eridius 3330 days ago
I'm not aware of public statements, I don't know why any big company would actually go on record as saying that. But what I described above is paraphrasing what I personally was told by a lawyer who worked for a big company.

Also, your own link shows that over time Apple has been shipping fewer and fewer GPL-licensed packages, and explicitly makes the case that Apple is trying to get rid of GPL-licensed software.

> People use GPL software, extensively.

People use all sorts of software. I have no idea why this statement is relevant to big companies shipping GPL software.

> Any use of GPL software is a compliment to the software authors.

I'm even more confused by the inclusion of this statement.

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