Hi,
Please see inline.
Stephan
On 1.14.2013 11:31 , "Marc Petit-Huguenin" <petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org> wrote:
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On 01/14/2013 01:43 AM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
Inline. S.
On 1.14.2013 10:33 , "Marc Petit-Huguenin" <petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org>
wrote:
On 01/14/2013 01:10 AM, Eggert, Lars wrote:
Hi,
On Jan 14, 2013, at 10:08, Marc Petit-Huguenin
<petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org>
wrote:
I think that you underestimate the IETF community, who certainly
know how to see through all the FUD about the GPL. Sure it may be
a bad idea to literally copy 300 lines of GPL code in your code,
but that does not apply to what we are talking about, which is
reading code.
I have worked for employers before where reading GPL code was
considered highly problematic.
Sure, if the IETF is part of your job, and your employer prevents you
to
read GPL code (or read Spinoza, or sing under the shower), then do not
do
it for the IETF. Now if your employer does not regulate what you do on
your own time, then there is no problem here.
If someone said to writers to never read any book that is still
copyrighted because they might be contaminated and that may somehow
induce
them to plagiarize without knowing it, how do you think they would
react?
Many would laugh. Some politicians in Germany, who were recently
found
that they plagiarized in the PhD theses, would probably notŠ Their
risk
is low, though.
And? Plagiarizing is extremely wrong. But preventing people to read
book is
not how any sane person would try to solve the plagiarism problem.
I agree.
And yet that is what is tried - with some success as I discover - with
software.
There is no difference with software - excepted that there a lot more
people that would like us to think that software is different.
This is incorrect. If you are found to infringe on someone's copyright
in a book you put together, you have a copyright problem (only). If
you
are found to infringe on certain open source licenses (including the
GPL
variants, but by no means limited to them), and the rightholder forces
you to take a license, you also have to provide a patent license under
terms you may not like. Even if you don't take a license, it is quite
possible that you have (by copying GPLed code) provided in implied
patent
license.
Do you have a case to share where that happened with a GPL license?
It has been pointed out to me that the formulation "take a license" above
was misleading, and I agree. What I meant is that the rightholder forces
you to re-license your code under GPL (what is sometimes called the
"viral" effect of the GPL).
As for your question, I vaguely recall an opinion which upheld the
requirement to grant a patent license for GPLv2(?) code (GPLv2 is not
pointing out the requirement to license patents as clearly as GPLv3 does).
But I would have to dig,and have limited motivation to do so right now.
As for the implied patent license, I'm not aware of case law.
Stephan
- --
Marc Petit-Huguenin
Email: marc(_at_)petit-huguenin(_dot_)org
Blog: http://blog.marc.petit-huguenin.org
Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/petithug
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