Messages in this thread | | | From | Pavel Nikulin <> | Date | Thu, 19 Oct 2017 18:28:12 +0300 | Subject | Re: [GIT PULL] Documentation: Add a file explaining the requested Linux kernel license enforcement policy |
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Hold!
Greg, are you trying to put a new addendum to the terms of GPL v2? I read the FAQ you posted, having you writing in that FAQ that this is not a change to license terms is not enough. Modification of GPL V2 terms are explicitly disallowed. IF you want to put such writing into kernel, a very explicit statement that aforementioned is nothing but a personal promise of you and ONLY people whom put their names there should be included. Like in a bold bold upper case text.
1. First
>Notwithstanding the termination provisions of the GPL-2.0 ... ... ...
Well, how we put it. That has no power over whether expedited injunction will be issued if the license formally stays V2
The text of a license is the binding contract. 1. You can't put a provision with a binding force to a contract retroactively. 2. This has to be a change the formal enforcement provisions of the license, no way other than that. They are not orthogonal to terms of GPL like the developer certificate of origin.
2. Seconds
> then your license + from a PARTICULAR copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, + unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally + terminates your license,
This effectively leaves things as they already are
>(b) permanently, if the copyright holder + fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to + 60 days after the cessation.
That's reasonable to say, but the codes of different countries have own opinions over temporal reach of contract power. Say, a router ships with a GPL incompliant firmware, an incompliance is found and fixed, yet somebody 100% can sue for an incompliance in the past, unless this phrase will be a part of binding terms of the contract.
3.
Copyright owners of kernel code have full right to seek compliance in courts, individually for the part of code they wrote in any way they wish, period. That includes asking courts for injunctions that may have ruinous consequences. Having an expedited injunction provisions on the table compels companies to get into compliance like nothing else. This makes a difference whether an enforcement action has any actual force or not.
Permanent incompliance leads to permanent license revocation under GPL v2, unlike GPL v3.
When Linus took a specific commitment to keep Linux under V2 for practical impossibility of changing the license for such a large project, that was discussed over and over. People who contribute to Linux kernel do so knowing that their copyright can be enforced under that specific term. That is true for contributions that were made long before the discussion over enforcement terms was a thing.
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