Cyao wrote:They say that free software is software that respects users' freedom (and community). But, In my opinion, having the freedom to make the code close sourced is also one of the users' freedom, so why does people think that copyleft licenses are "free"? Also why people like to force people to keep their source open?
Well, this gets into the philosophical debate of freedom of the individual vs. freedom of the group. Personally, I do it because I don't want to be ripped off. See, there once was a little kernel called Linux, and a big company I won't name thought it would be a good idea to use that kernel as basis of their new router product. They thought they could ignore the GPL outright. So then a court of law slapped them on the fingers, and they had to release both the Linux source code and the patches they made to it to the public (well, to their customers only, but since they sell to the general public, there is no real difference), and that was the basis for the OpenWRT project.
If you want to use my code in your product, I want to know about it. If you dislike the GPL, we can talk about a commercial license for you, but it won't be free, I can tell you that.
Octocontrabass wrote:Cyao wrote:And a little off topic question: If I copy like a function from a copyleft source (lets assume GPL licensed), does that also mean that I need to make my code all GPL?
Yes.
See, this is where I get to show off my knowledge gained from too much YouTube by telling you: It actually depends. (If you don't get the joke: Lawyers will always tell you "it depends".)
In this case it depends on what you're copying, how creative it was, and how many ways there are to solve the same problem. Actual copying is not even necessary, it is enough that you had access to the source material before creating your knock-off. If the source material is well-known in the industry, then access is presumed.
Technically, we are speaking about copyright infringement here. In order to prove copyright infringement, the plaintiff has to prove existence of a copyright and that the defendant violated one of the enumerated exclusive rights of the rights holder. So there is already the first avenue of defence: Is there even a copyright here? Remember, you only get copyright on your
original expression. Let's say you copied this function here:
Code: Select all
int printf(const char *fmt, ...) {
int ret;
va_list ap;
va_start(ap, fmt);
ret = vfprintf(stdout, fmt, ap);
va_end(ap);
return ret;
}
Let's say it was released under GPL. Well, the declaration comes from the C standard, so no copyright attaches to it (and even if ISO did copyright their stuff, the declaration would be copyright of the ISO, not whoever wrote this function), and the rest is extremely obvious. So one defence is to say that this function does not even have the minimum creativity necessary to be copyrighted. Neither the start nor the end point were creative choices of its author, and everything else exists to glue the two together.
Similarly, if that defence fails, you can make almost the same argument again with a Scènes à faire defence. There are not that many ways to write that function; it is kind of necessary to write it in this way. Therefore you did not infringe.
Finally, if neither of these arguments worked, you can go for the Hail-Mary and try a fair-use defence. That one is tricky, since it is an affirmative defence, so you can only raise it during certain portions of the lawsuit and by doing so, you admit to the act itself. However, that was the plea that got Google out of hot water in the Oracle v. Google decision, so you may be able to show transformative use in some way.
But yes, if copyright does attach to the function you copied, then you need a license to redistribute it or any derivative work, and failing any back-room deals that license is going to be the GPL, and that means you need to GPL everything.
I think I understood it correctly because, years later, it became clear that a lot of GNU tools were written by people who hardly knew what they were doing.
BE NICE!!! 