From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,faf964ea4531e6af X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: GPL and "free" software (was: air traffic control software) Date: 1999/04/25 Message-ID: <7fudch$hsv$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 470589706 References: <7fibd5$jc7$1@news2.tor.accglobal.net> <7fjucn$k4p$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> <7fkl3v$1e2$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7fl5ac$9sh$1@news2.tor.accglobal.net> <7fl9q5$ab7@drn.newsguy.com> <7foo6s$qbm$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <37209ca6.1133249@news.pacbell.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x17.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Sun Apr 25 06:40:17 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-04-25T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Florian Weimer 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! -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own