[LAD] [OT] LinuxSampler and GPL - some clarifications

Marek mlf.conv at gmail.com
Wed Jan 30 16:05:33 UTC 2008


On Jan 28, 2008 4:11 PM, Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 15:16 +0100, Marek wrote:
>
> > No. GPL doesn't include any compensation mechanism at all. It
> > implicitly prohibits from using the program licensed under the terms
> > of GPLfor any commercial purpose other than charging for distribution.
>
> ground zero: from the GPL:
>
>   "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
> covered by this License; they are outside its scope."
>
> so, the GPL is ***ONLY*** about copying, distribution and modification.
> It has ***NOTHING*** to say about any use, commercial or otherwise that
> does not involve one of these 3 activities.

"You may charge for physical act of transferring a copy":
1. the GPL allows both commercial or non-commercial(costs only) charge
(since there's no limit as to what price you may charge).
2. the GPL only allows to charge for tranfering a copy or
*distribution* of copies

Which means it also deals with *commercial* distribution and since the
GPL deals with virtually any aspect of distribution, *including*
commercial distribution, it is *NOT* outside of its scope. The same
goes for commercial copying and commercial modifying. And guess what,
the GPL doesn't allow it for third parties, though not explicitly.
Because you cannot  apply "Qui tacet, consentire videtur"  unless
you're dealing with roman law.

So let's rephrase the statement:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification ...
whether or not a third party is charging for such copying,
distribution, or modification in order to make profit or cover the
costs for doing so.

> When it comes to these
> activities, it lays down the terms under which you, the receiver of the
> software may engage in them. And the message is the same in every case:
> you may participate in any of them, in any way, at any time, for any
> purpose as long any 3rd party receives the exact same rights for the
> work you make available to them as you have received via the GPL.
>

Paul, this is the General Public License, not General Public Labour.
And in fact, you' might be the one working your as* off in order to
fuel profit of others. And they might not give back.
If someone rips of parts of ardour in order to build  a 24 track hw
recording machine (for example)
he won't even bother to release the parts.
What will you do?
Sue him? Time and money consuming, what do you get as a poor
opensource developer?
In the meantime suppose he's making loads of money, his hw recorder is
a big success.
Then after dozens of C&D letters he decides to release the parts on
his website and says, he's commited to opensource.
After that he sells his company for big amount of money.

What do you get?

Making money out of GPL licensed software for the copyright holders
can be important, sometimes essential in order to keep the project
from dying,  investing in its development, rectruiting more
developers, speeding up the development making it more robust, less
error prone, more feature rich etc....

> neither the FSF nor the vast majority of people releasing software under
> the terms of the GPL agree with your interpretation Marek. in fact, let
> me amend that. i don't know of *any* other person who interprets the GPL
> the way you are suggesting.

I mean, demonstrations all over the world, people holding their hands,
balloons all over the place, tons of petitions signed.

Seriously though, give me at least 10 links.

There's a deeper problem with the fact how people understand the GPL.
Many developers have considered switching from it for the reasons were
discussing(protecting from commercial misuse).
As far as i know you have considered that too if i'm not mistaken,
along with Christian(LinuxSampler).

If people interpreting the GPL in the woodstock sense of way, will
eventually stop doing it, and start looking for solutions in order to
squeeze some revenue out of their open source work,
they will eventually start seeking for a different license. And that
might have deep consequences. Every single developer can choose
another license, seek legal advice in order to do so, or in order to
write a new one, etc. With the GPL, you don't have to deal with such
things, since it's a defacto standard. Meaning the number of licenses
for which you need a legal intepretation is equal to 1, you can have a
look at the cases where the license has been defended in court,
almost no need to seek legal advice in order to protect certain
rights(if you you contect FSF), no need for third parties to seek
legal advice every time they pick another open source software, i.e.
rules get more understandable, don't change often, better for
everyone.

If a company makes profit with opensource software as a *third party*,
and is required to invest part of its profit into development of the
opensource product, either by paying or by coding, how much does such
fact make the software less free?


>
> it doesn't really matter whether you can use decontextualized excerpts

What? Demostrate.

> of the GPL to argue a particular perspective. what you describe is not
> the intent of the GPL, has not been the effect of the GPL and is not the
> current (always subject to change) legal status of the GPL.

Again, the intent of the GPL is *your* intent, not the one of FSF -
declaration of will.

> there is
> absolutely nothing in the GPL that stops anyone taking a program
> released under its terms and selling it, in combination with other
> hardware and/or software or by itself, for any amount whatsoever. the
> only thing the GPL does is to require that the sale takes place under
> the same terms - the buyer gets all the same rights as the GPL-bound
> seller.

You're talking about distribution,  under the terms of GPL.
You can charge for distribution of software licensed under the terms
of GPL, not *for software* licensed under the terms of GPL.

Marek



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