You’re referring to a different kind of dispute than I (and parent) was talking about. In this case, Stallman did handle the dispute about whether GNU Parallel’s citation notice conflicted with the terms of the GPL.
Okay that makes sense. You're saying that since the GPL itself is not open, that it needs Stallman's approval for modifications that are not explicitly allowed. And I was saying that it does not necessarily mean those modifications are enforceable between two parties in a random jurisdiction, which comes down to courts and whatnot.
Yes kind-of… in this case Parallel’s notice is not a modification of the license at all, and Stallman is the person who ruled on this question and confirmed this to be true. The GPL doesn’t prevent authors from including a notice, and having a notice doesn’t conflict with the terms of the GPL.
I feel like the whole problem here is that the legality of Parallel’s notice, and the separation of the notice from the GPL, is not at all clear. The language is confusing to users. People who take the license seriously are staying away from Parallel because of the fear of accidentally breaking the license terms.
That’s not true. The language of Parallel’s citation notice, while confusing to some users, does not impose any legal requirements and is not part of the license. Neither the notice nor the license claim otherwise. RMS, and more importantly, Ole Tange, agree that Parallel’s notice is not legally binding, and intended to write it that way, and there is a publicly visible history of this intention and agreement.
Indeed, and people are choosing not to use Parallel for the same reason. The notice would be much better IMO from the user perspective if it was more clear. I guess that’s maybe the point, to leave people with the mistaken impression that this is a binding agreement.
RMS, not being a judge, is incapable of "authoritatively" or otherwise determining whether this notice is legally binding.
If it is something that needs to be "confirmed" by someone "authoritatively" then you should ask a lawyer for advice. You should not ask a programmer for a "ruling".
What RMS might be saying is "we won't seek to enforce it". That is completely different.
> What RMS might be saying is “we won’t seek to enforce it”. That is completely different.
If you review the thread from the top, you might find the primary question we were discussing from the start before you jumped in is whether the Parallel notice is GPL compliant. Whether Parallel’s notice is definitively and absolutely legally binding on its own and away from the GPL is a nuance you introduced, but it has been answered for all practical purposes by both Ole and RMS. It will probably never go to court or be tested by a judge, partially as a result of what Ole and RMS have said: that the notice is not a license and is not contractual.
There is no dispute about this, and because there is no dispute and because it’s not going to court, the statements by Ole and RMS are the most definitive answer we’ve got, and to date is what people are using when making and acting on decisions about Parallel usage. Both of them have said the Parallel notice complies with the GPL because the notice is not legally binding, so Ole & RMS both were saying more than GNU won’t seek to enforce Parallel’s notice. “Academic tradition” is not legally binding law, and the notice doesn’t reference any other relevant law. The notice is full of legal holes, if you insist on interpreting it as a legal contract. It was written by Ole (not a lawyer) and doesn’t define what research usage would constitute a mandatory citation, nor what happens if the user doesn’t see the notice, or if a citation is inappropriate, or if the citation is rejected by reviewers, among many other possibilities. It doesn’t take a lawyer or judge to see that the Parallel notice is not legally enforceable, and it doesn’t take a legal education to see that it’s not Ole’s intent to enforce it as a contract. He is just asking for citations, in slightly confrontational language.
It would be fair to say that a judge or court, if this issue was ever tested in court, might overrule some aspect of Ole’s or RMS’s stated intent because their language was imprecise and effectively said something different than they meant. Then again, another judge can override the first judge. There’s nothing definitive or absolute or permanent in law, regardless of whether a judges rules on it, and intent does matter in practice. Before this ever goes to court (probably never), all questions on this topic can be (and already are!) answered by non-judges, which is why it’s demonstrably not true to claim this question can only be answered in court or by a judge.
> You should not ask a programmer for a “ruling”.
RMS wasn’t acting as a programmer when he wrote the GPL, btw, nor when he opined on whether Parallel’s notice complies, so in that sense your framing is veering into the hyperbolic.