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SubjectRe: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux


On Sun, 27 Dec 1998, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:

> In message <36866066.595B@voxel.net>, Raj Dutt writes:
> +-----
> | Zack Brown wrote:
> | > (and e.g. allows proprietary forking etc), thus affecting
> | > all programs currently licenced under the GPL, what could anyone do about
> | > that? And please don't say, "oh, he would *never* do something like that."
> |
> | Why don't you read, and then reread the exact clause that you so kindly
> | attached in this ridiculous scenario. A new "nightmare" GPL version
> | would not affect any programs currently licensed under the GPL.
> +--->8
>
> Actually, it would; you are ignoring the phrase
>
> | > the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
> | > (at your option) any later version.
> +--->8
>
> "Your" in the above phrase means the reader of the license, including anyone
> who wished to apply the "proprietary fork" clause of Zack's phantasm.

Exactly! Here is the scenario: The FSF releases a GPL v.3 which allows
proprietary forking. Someone at IBM downloads any version of the kernel and
whatever other GPLed software they please, and use the "at your option"
clause to accept the licencing of the software under v. 3 of the GPL. At
that point, since they have the legal right to do so under v. 3, they do
their proprietary fork of all that code, and bingo! proprietary linux! Of
course, in that scenario they can't stop people from working on the
nonproprietary versions, but they would certainly be legally able to
distribute binary-only releases and not share the source of their
modifications or even the original code. It would be a completely legal,
closed-source version of the entire linux/gnu/etc OS, with no argument at
all.

This could happen any time the FSF decides to release a new version of the
GPL. And they are not responsible to anyone for the content of the licence.
They can make it say whatever they want it to say. The same goes for whoever
might gain control of the FSF.

My example of RMS getting mad and making the change was meant more as a
joke. I don't think he would ever do such a thing. The point I was getting
at was the inherent fragility of the GPL because of that clause. A takeover
of the FSF through some unpredictable means, would allow the legal creation
of a new GPL which would apply to all work previously licenced under any
version of the GPL.

The argument that L.T. would simply change licences is obviously not a good
one as we've seen from the KDE/QT situation. KDE cannot change its licence
because of the tremendous diversity of contributed code, and the same is
true of linux.

So on the one hand the licence can be changed out from under us, and on the
other hand we cannot change the licencing out from under the GPL.

Shake in your boots.

Zack

>
> --
> brandon s. allbery [os/2][linux][solaris][japh] allbery@kf8nh.apk.net
> system administrator [WAY too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu
> carnegie mellon / electrical and computer engineering KF8NH
> We are Linux. Resistance is an indication that you missed the point.
>
>
>
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