[HN Gopher] Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015) ___________________________________________________________________ Linux's GPLv2 licence is routinely violated (2015) Author : ladyanita22 Score : 57 points Date : 2022-02-19 21:03 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.devever.net) (TXT) w3m dump (www.devever.net) | torstenvl wrote: | > _Linus Torvalds seems to speak as though he has the power to | interpret the GPL._ | | IANAIPL but intent of the parties does _generally_ matter to any | legal analysis of an agreement. This is especially true when | discussing written evidence of intent. Arguably, the discussion | of GPL_ONLY could be taken to mean that those without such a | marking are being granted an exception by the authors, which is | perfectly well within their power to do. | | https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/blog/the-parol-evidence-rul... | mustache_kimono wrote: | But parole evidence is trickier to apply here than you might | imagine. It only applies where there is an ambiguity in the | text, and probably matters much less where 3rd parties are to | be bound by a license, instead of two parties to a contract. | fsckboy wrote: | > _It is rather ironic that in some ways, one has more freedom in | how one licences a kernel driver for Windows than the freedom one | supposedly has in writing a kernel module for Linux._ | | it is not ironic at all: freedom in Free Software is the freedom | of USERS of the software to be able to see and modify the source. | This is a freedom granted by the writers of the software, and | copyleft means that this right is ensured through any chain of | modifications by additional authors. | | In this same way, the GPL and like licenses are the _most | permissive licenses_ from the perspective of every eventual user | aaomidi wrote: | Yeah this is not a "no license" freedom situation. People | routinely get this wrong. | crazypython wrote: | > So if you violate the licence, it is terminated. That's it. | Given that "you" may refer to a corporation, this creates the | following disturbing possibility: | | GPLv3 fixed this, after being notified of a violation, you have | 30 days to remedy it | charcircuit wrote: | I used to use the GPL license to license my software, but now it | seems like it is too much of a legal nightmare, so I've stopped | using it. | yardstick wrote: | What did you switch to? | nix23 wrote: | GPL is a nice idea...but you need lawyers lots of money and | time. I hate lawyers and i don't have time for that bs nor do | it have/want money to spend for lawyers, i was a diehard gpl | evangelist in my 20`s, now it's BSD/MIT/ISC (and not diehard | anymore...more like IDGAS)...and i really don't care for | religion anymore...just quality and real freedom. | tssge wrote: | >GPL is a nice idea...but you need lawyers lots of money and | time. | | This applies to any license. BSD/MIT/ISC rules can be broken | as well and the only means to rectify it in the case that the | other party refuses to cooperate is to resort to litigation. | nix23 wrote: | >BSD/MIT/ISC rules can be broken as well | | No one cares and no one has interests to break them for | financial gain...not even lawyers (that's the good part) | assttoasstmgr wrote: | My company does whatever it can to comply with GPL | requirements and it is nothing short of a goddamn nightmare. | Nothing like sitting in a conference room for hours with | lawyers while we poured through the licenses for 250 | different packages; we would have been better off just | burning the money. My conclusions are that most Linux | distributions are an amalgam of software packages with | licenses that are _fundamentally incompatible_ with each | other; the GPL is extremely poorly written with lots of | vagaries. I don 't think there is a path to 100% compliance; | you just make sure your heart is in the right place and hope | for the best. | | Ultimately, we concluded we are moving to BSD on future | projects where possible. Not because of some overwhelming | need to keep source closed from customers, rather just to | avoid the mess. | jka wrote: | The other way to avoid this would be to lean copyleft for | your own codebase(s). If they're made public and you | include the appropriate source code references for the | dependencies you rely on, then you should be in the clear | legally (and perhaps morally, although that's a separate | topic). | nix23 wrote: | >short of a goddamn nightmare | | It is....don't touch lawyers if you want to get real wok | done. | posguy wrote: | Those 250 packages likely don't have custom forks of the | GPL license. Handling of legal requirements for each | package should be templatable by management based on | whether a particular package is GPLv2, GPLv3 or AGPLv3 and | has a linking exception. | badsectoracula wrote: | > and i really don't care for religion anymore...just quality | and real freedom. | | The freedom that GPL is about isn't about the developer's | freedom to do whatever they please but about the user's | freedom from the developers' whims. This isn't some arbitrary | nebulous religion-like dogma but comes from the very | practical issue of developers inherently having power over | the programs they write and, by extension, power over the | users who rely on those programs. | | Remember that the entire free software thing didn't start | because the Emacs god visited Stallman in his sleep but | because he was denied access to the source code that would | help him fix his lab's printer. | tsimionescu wrote: | > The userspace ABI is stable and intended not to cause anything | targeting it to become a derived work. But once again, this seems | to be a way in which the kernel project seems to think it has the | power to interpret the GPL. In their minds, targeting the | userspace ABI doesn't make a derived work, but writing a module | does, unless it only targets GPL_ONLY symbols, in which case for | some reason it isn't. | | I think this whole part applies as much to the text of the GPL | itself as to the common Linux explanation. The GPL draws a | distinction between dynamic linking, static linking, and use over | a network or through a CLI style interface to decide if a work is | a derived work of the GPL program. But, this distinction is just | a novel legal theory proposal at best - there is nothing in | copyright law that would make the GPL distinctions authoritative. | | A license simply doesn't get to decide what constitutes a derived | work - that's entirely up to copyright law itself and the court | system to decide. | | On the other hand, unless and until Congress decides to | explicitly legislate how copyright should apply to software, the | courts can very well take common industry practice into | consideration for judging what is and is not a derived work of a | program, and in this sense the Linux kernel developers' opinion | is in no way less impactful than the proposals in the GPL itself. | | Furthermore, in a matter of contract law (so assuming that the | work is indeed judged to be derived according to copyright law, | but now judging whether the GPL may offer some relevant | exemptions), the stated intentions and interpretations of the | parties of the contract are indeed relevant. If there is a long | history of kernel developers publicly stating that as long as you | are not using GPL_ONLY symbols, your work should not be | considered to be under the purview of the GPL, and if this has | not been commonly publicly contested, I think that in an actual | trial this will matter much more than other interpretations of | the GPL. | Borealid wrote: | I think there's some confusion in the above post. | | The relevant "derived work" definition for the purpose of | linking isn't one stemming from copyright law, it's the one in | the GPL itself. This is because the GPL defines what licensees | are permitted to do with the licensed work, and it imposes | restrictions on those rights. Copyright law by default lets you | make very little use of the software - the GPL broadens that | out to include various forms of use, if (and only if) "derived | works" fall within its scope. | | You could ignore the GPL and static-link a piece of software to | a GPLed library, but if you did so, you'd legally need a | different right to use the GPLed library, because you hadn't | complied with its license terms and so only have your minimal | rights to use someone else's intellectual property. | | Said differently, the GPL doesn't try to apply itself to | "derived works" because of some contralegal dictum they don't | have a different creative origin. It merely says "you have two | choices - license the things you link with OUR stuff under OUR | terms, or you don't have the right to use our stuff". | temac wrote: | > I think this whole part applies as much to the text of the | GPL itself as to the common Linux explanation. The GPL draws a | distinction between dynamic linking, static linking, and use | over a network or through a CLI style interface to decide if a | work is a derived work of the GPL program. | | I just rechecked and it does not seem the GPLv2 does such | things. I've not rechecked for v3, but from memory it does not | do that either. | | I completely agree with you that clear intent is important | though. | mustache_kimono wrote: | I think she/he's trying to say -- the FSF draws such | distinctions, but I think you're right the GPLv2 doesn't, and | these are all just post-hoc rationalizations. | robertlagrant wrote: | Never mind a clean room interpretation; if we can get one project | to wrap the ABI and everyone build against that project then | there's only project that can be sued :-) | btdmaster wrote: | This is no cure, but quite a few kernel developers have signed | this: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.16/process/kernel- | enforce... | oxguy3 wrote: | While it's not ideal to have Linux being used in ways that aren't | permitted by the license, it's not necessarily a violation of | anyone's rights. These license-incompatible uses of Linux are | ongoing and readily apparent. There's a decent argument to be | made that anyone contributing to Linux should have reasonably | expected that their contributions would be used in this way, even | if it wasn't in the license. Courts have to deal with resolving | disputes where the terms of agreement weren't clearly documented | all the time. | | Obviously that's a bit flimsy and it'd be preferable that the | license be bulletproof, but it is what it is. It only becomes a | problem if someone gets litigious. If that happens, and it's | someone who's made a small contribution, then their code can | probably just be purged and rewritten. If it happens with a | bigger contributor, then the argument that they should have known | what was going on becomes stronger. | | Hopefully it never becomes an issue. /shrug | ladyanita22 wrote: | The problem (for me) is that nowadays most of our IT | infrastructure depends on Linux. Depending on an operating | system hoping that nobody ever gets litigious because it's | licensed in such a way that it creates this risk is, for me, a | bit problematic. | boomboomsubban wrote: | *2015 | ladyanita22 wrote: | Is it any less relevant? | dang wrote: | It's just the convention on HN to put the year in the title | when it's an older story. Users often point it out as a hint | to whoever can add it to the title. No criticism is implied! | ladyanita22 wrote: | My bad! I wasn't aware of such a convention. | | Good to know! | [deleted] | ladyanita22 wrote: | I believe there may be some reasons why you may want proprietary | (or incompatibly licensed) kernel modules. In such cases, as long | as you didn't take code from the Kernel, I believe it shouldn't | be considered a derivative work. I believe my opinion is quite | unpopular and not share within the FOSS community. | | I honestly speaking prefer BSD or MIT for the linking purposes. I | believe forbidding linking makes it too restrictive for some use | cases. | | Particularly striking to me is this sentence: "It is rather | ironic that in some ways, one has more freedom in how one | licences a kernel driver for Windows than the freedom one | supposedly has in writing a kernel module for Linux. " | | It makes me believe there's something wrong in the current state | of things. | RustyRussell wrote: | Sure, but when I was a kernel dev I considered it a reasonable | line: it's not that hard to create your own kernel if you want | a different licence. | | It was one reason I worked on the kernel: that all your | software should be hackable. I probably would have found | something else to do if the licence were different. | fao_ wrote: | > I believe it shouldn't be considered a derivative work | | Isn't the point of the majority of this document, that nobody, | not individual rightsholders, nor the FSF, not even the Linux | Kernel Project, has the legal authority or knowledge to | interpret the LGPLv2. That fundamentally the LGPLv2 is a legal | document and therefore the only people able to create an | interpretation of this document are lawyers, and even then, | their interpretation is subject to how a judge might decide in | a court of law? | | So therefore, your beliefs, my beliefs, anyone's beliefs on | this are mere conjecture or supposition, and can be considered | essentially worthless. Ultimately, how it plays out depends on | legal precedence, jurisdiction, judge, hell- the weather on the | day of the trial and the specific circumstances in which it is | brought up in the court system. | | Ergo, isn't it more than a little presumptuous to debate on | this matter? To put forth your opinion and opine it as what you | believe, and therefore as some degree of possibility or fact, | despite there being essentially no reference point unless a | lawyer was actually contacted and was able to provide an | interpretation? | ladyanita22 wrote: | I believe this reply is presuntous. | | Edit: Also, this is about the GPL2, not the LGPL. | phendrenad2 wrote: | Good writeup on the intricacies and consequences of the Linux | kernel being GPLv2 licensed. | | The actual headline is debatable. | | However, It seems to me that the license doesn't matter that | much, since everyone has a vested interest in Linux being exactly | the way it is, GPL_ONLY weirdness and all. It's unlikely that | someone will show up and fork Linux and explicitly break the | license (using GPL_ONLY symbols in a non-GPL context), because | that person or company would be excommunicated from the Linux | fold. | ladyanita22 wrote: | How feasible is it to avoid using GPL_ONLY symbols? Because if | you for sure need GPL modules for some use cases[1], then I | believe the point still stands. | | [1] This is, being unable to even reimplement the functions | yourself in a self-contained module. | AshamedCaptain wrote: | Except if VMware does it. In that case, they're welcome to join | the Linux Foundation. (previously on HN | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9151799 ) | [deleted] | AshamedCaptain wrote: | > Actually, it gets worse. Here's what the GPLv2 says about | termination: | | > So if you violate the licence, it is terminated. That's it. | Given that "you" may refer to a corporation, this creates the | following disturbing possibility: | | This is called the GPL death penalty, has actually happen in the | past even before the article was written. | | It is yet another thing fixed by the oft-maligned GPLv3. Samba | switched to GPLv3 because of it. | https://ftp.samba.org/pub/samba/slides/linuxcollab-why-samba... | rosenjcb wrote: | I agree: neither Linus nor FSF have authority to interpret the | GPL. The way you find out if a license is enforceable is if you | take it to arbitration or court. There's not enough case law in | this area to smooth out our understanding of what is and isn't | allowed. | Comevius wrote: | I rather use Mozilla Public License 2.0, Eclipse Public License | 2.0, or EUPL 1.2 for copyleft purposes. | | Strong copyleft as a concept has no legal reality. Linking a | program to another don't produce a derivative work. | | https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-l... | | FSF is full of baloney about how static or dynamic linking is | different than communicating for example through sockets. To be | able to use the program I have to link it. What manner I choose | to do that or available to me should not matter. I should also be | able to reproduce portions of a program necessary for linking. | Interoperability does not interfere with the legitimate interest | of the licensor, or conflict with normal usage. | mustache_kimono wrote: | I wish the FOSS community would rally around this idea. | | Re: GNU/FSF, I think they've done a real disservice to the FOSS | community misrepresenting the state of American copyright law. | Yes, to a certain extent it's understandable. But also -- I | wish someone with credibility with devs/FOSS users would | finally say: "This is such an illusion, it's mostly a joke." | ladyanita22 wrote: | That'd be more akin to the Apple Public License, right? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-19 23:00 UTC)