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by bawolff 1502 days ago
> The SF Conservancy is now trying to SUE folks over using GPL code they had no hand in creating.

Do you have a source for this claim. Unless you just mean, that they are suing people on behalf of the creator of the code (But without creating it themselves), in which case I would say you are being extremely misleading.

Why would they have legal standing if they are not the copyright owner?

Certainly you can't do it against the will of the copyright owner, as the copyright owner is allowed to give new licenses to anyone they want under whatever terms they want.

Edit: i stand corrected.
2 comments
garaetjjte 1502 days ago
This is described by post itself:

>The lawsuit we filed last year against Vizio takes an approach more appropriate for widely marketed and available consumer devices. Namely, the claim in Vizio is a contract claim for third-party beneficiary rights under the GPL, which will allow us (and all other customers who bought Vizio TV's) to receive the repair and modification instructions to the software more directly.

I don't think this is against the spirit of GPL, after all the focus of it is user freedom (though arguably GPLv2 ended up weaker than expected by FSF (TiVo hole), and then FSF strongly pushed to switch to GPLv3 while ignoring that some developers deliberately preferred v2 terms).

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onphonenow 1502 days ago
You are adopting the SFC's flawed analysis here.

The rights to the code belong to the AUTHOR of the code. Random users have no rights. The GPL is a grant to someone to use code without payment. Failure to follow the GPL means the AUTHORS rights are restored and license to use freely revoked. Again, users have no claim in this situation.

This SFC interpretation of third party rights is ridiculous. I hope some of the bigger hitters in this space come out with some statements on this.

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pabs3 1502 days ago
As part of the GPL bargain, third parties have rights to the code too, just like second parties. And further downstream to everyone in the world.
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onphonenow 1493 days ago
No, this is false. I the distributor does not share their code to users, then their license from the AUTHOR is revocable by the copyright holder which is the author not the user.
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djbusby 1502 days ago
They (SFC) sued Vizio

https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2021/10/software-freedom-cons...

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