Re: GPL and "free" software (was: air traffic control software)

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com>]

In article
<m34sm64cz2.fsf@deneb.cygnus.stuttgart.netsurf.de>,
  Florian Weimer <fw@cygnus.stuttgart.netsurf.de> wrote:
> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) writes:
>
> Perhaps.  But we do not know yet whether the GPL will
> hold up in court anyway.

What do you mean by "hold up" here? Most certainly anyone
who copies software in clear violation of the permissions
of the GPL, e.g. by not making sources available, is
committing a simple copyright violation. The courts have
clearly affirmed the intention of congress that software
be subject to the full protection of the copyright law!

Now if there is judgment involved, e.g. I make the sources
available, but you have to wait XXX months for me to fill
your order for them, then some value of XXX is
unacceptable, and indeed the courts would have to make
a judgment on this issue.

But the presumption is pretty strong that anyone who copies
a copyrighted work must be able to demonstrate that they
have a license to do so, i.e. the burden of proof would be
on the copier in this case to show that the copying they
had done was not a copyright violation. This was for
example one of the arguments that Microsoft was using in
the Apple case, they argued they had a license for the
copying they did.

Of course the software has to be legitimately copyrighted
and there is a whole section of case law devoted to exactly
what that means!



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