Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2020 21:35:01 -0400 From: Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman@gmail.com> To: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: GPL, not freebsd should be rewritten based on microkernel architecture Message-ID: <CAGBxaXk6dB=VX%2BOOSNKyf=rV8xOJJqfobPOvqLPiXY3tL8UdBg@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20200420011735.6448818053ED@ary.qy> References: <CAGBxaX=4=yx-xSo0gdsVgAoA7fUn8oRq3173covquHNw61kBJQ@mail.gmail.com> <20200420011735.6448818053ED@ary.qy>
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On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:17 PM John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote: > In article <CAGBxaX=4= > yx-xSo0gdsVgAoA7fUn8oRq3173covquHNw61kBJQ@mail.gmail.com> you write: > >Thus I suspect if push came to shove in a legal fight about the legality > of > >GPL forcing third parties that just happen to use a GPL'ed project to give > >up all claims over how their work is used would likely unconstitutional. > > I'd suggest not playing junior lawyer. The GPL is a contract and > there have been successful cases to enforce it. Nobody has any > inherent right to use GPL'ed software (or any other software not > released into the public domain) so if you don't like the terms, don't > use it. > There is major disagreement if it is a contract or an license (the two are not the same) see the wikipedia article on legal status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Legal_status ... the only thing we know for sure is a non-UCC state (which may or may not set a precident in a UCC state) says it is a contract but other courts have held it is not a contract per se (legally binding license but not a contract). The key difference is what court (state or federal) has say over it and if a contract is possible without consideration on both sides (many implied contracts are not contracts for example a parking facility that is has no implied contract with the owner of a car for theft or damage). > > I am not crazy about the GPL and one of the things I like about > FreeBSD is that most of it has much more reasonable licenses. > If you read the full context of my comments you would see I more then "not crazy about GPL" my self.... thus all my comments are not designed to defend GPL just to point out that many common interpretations of what it allows and not allows are incorrect. -- Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org
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