Re: GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders

["linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com>]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, Kyle Moffett wrote:

> On Jan 25, 2006, at 14:24:13, Marc Perkel wrote:
>> Is it possible to have Linux be mostly GPL3 with parts of it GPL2?
>> Or is that just too insane to deal with?
>
> Well given that parts of the kernel are GPLv2-only, other parts are
> GPLv2+, other parts are GPL/BSD, etc, I can't see how somebody using
> a GPLv3-only or GPLv3+ license for some other part would be
> problematic.  If anything, the multiple licensing provides additional
> code protection; we get the advantages of all the licenses, but if
> any one license is found to be invalid, it does not break the
> protection of the body of code itself.
>
> Cheers,
> Kyle Moffett
>

The original GPL said something about:
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients'
exercise of the rights granted herein." (Section 6).
Then, that __exact__ code was redistributed under Version 2
which further restricted rights, then additional versions
which further restricted rights. Now you are planning to
add additional restrictions? I don't think the present
so-called license would pass muster in any sane court in
the United States after the original licensed code was
plagiarized into a new binding license.

Simple test. Pretend the code was a music chart. Music
charts have been copyrighted since the start of the
copyright office. You write some music and, in its
copyright notice, you license anybody to use it as
long as they don't claim that they wrote it. Then
some licensing agency comes along and writes a new
license, effectively claiming ownership by claiming
control (the legal word is conversion). Do you think
for a moment that any court of law would uphold the
new license?

All of Linux has undergone such a conversion and it is
effectively owned by the "Free Software Foundation, Inc."
Of course RMS didn't tell you this when he appropriated
it, but it's done.

If code was written to be distributed under a certain
set of rules, just like sheet-music, nobody but the
writer or his assigns is allowed to change those
distribution rules at a later date. If those rules
are changed, they are invalid, i.e., unenforceable.

You want new rules, you rewrite the kernel from scratch
under the new rules and, you must not produce a derived
work (which has many meanings) in the process or the
new license is unenforceable as well.


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13.4 on an i686 machine (5589.66 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.

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