Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:11:24 -0800 (PST) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | RE: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? |
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On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote: > > How can the additional words alter the mean of GPL itself?
They can't.
But they _can_ alter your ability to sue. In particular, if you publicly state that you will not sue anybody over something, they can now use that statement to make future plans. If at a later date you decide to sue them anyway, they can point the judge at your earlier statement, and claim estoppel against you.
So note how the license itself didn't change - but your ability to _enforce_ the license has changed by virtue of you stating that you won't.
So while I publicaly say that I'm a lazy bastard, and the less I have to do with lawyers, the better - I won't actually say that I will never sue anybody. I'll say that it is "unlikely", or that people would have to irritate me mightily.
For most developers that literally doesn't much matter what they say. Even when _I_ say something, that doesn't really matter to what other developers do, and while it could potentially limit me from enforcing _my_ copyrights, it doesn't stop others from enforcing theirs. So my random email ramblings should really be construed as my opinions rather than any legally relevant stuff.
However, the few extra lines in the main COPYING file end up being somewhat binding to others, simply because they are _so_ public (they are, after all, in the _main_ COPYING file) and they have been there pretty much since the beginning, that they would basically end up being a very strong argument in any legal case where some random kernel developer would try to argue that it doesn't cover "their" code.
You don't have to agree to them, btw - you can remove them from the copy of Linux you distribute, since the GPL in no way requires you to keep them. They're not part of the copyright license per se, they are expressly marked as being my personal viewpoint. I suspect that if you do, you'll find companies that would be slightly more nervous to work with you, though.
But nobody has really ever argued against the clause, even originally. And in this particular discussion, I don't believe anybody is actually arguing against it now either. The legal meaning of it may be under discussion, but I don't think anybody is really even _trying_ to argue that it should be removed and that we should suddenly try to claim that any future user programs have to be GPL'd.
Quite the reverse - I think everybody involved would argue that that would just be crazy talk.
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