🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan9.211106.22282@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>So suppose a slightly different scenario.  I wrote two programs, A and B,
>both of which have subroutine S in them.  Somehow A goes under the GPL,
>perhaps because I decided to put it under GPL, perhaps because I made it PD
>and someone else decided to put it under the GPL.
>
>I now decide to write C, which also uses subroutine S.  If I take S from A,
>C is infected with the GPL.  If I take S from B, C is not.

Right.

>Yet the two copies of S are still identical, byte for byte.  I'm stuck; any
>third party can say "oh, you just took S from the GPL program.  So C falls
>under the GPL, so I can copy C".  Can _this_ happen and is _this_ intended?

Just because he thinks it came from the GPL program doesn't make it so.

I don't think someone receiving C can sue you over this, as there is no
contract between you and he that says anything about source availability.
I think that only the parties to a contract can sue over contract
violation.  So this third party would have to contact the originator of the
code and convince him that you violated his license to you.

>How could I possibly prove otherwise?

Explain the genesis of your program, just as you did in your posting, and
hope the court believes you.  If you have versions of the program dated
earlier than those of the person who claims to have originated it then
you'll have a pretty good case against having copied it.

By the way, I think this addresses the earlier issue of whether copylefting
a program makes the FSF the de facto owner.  I think the only third party
who could sue you over violating the GPL is the person who claims to have
distributed the software containing GPLed code to you; he could claim that
by not distributing the source to a derivative you're violating the license
agreement you implicitly accepted by distributing the binaries.  He can
force you either to stop distributing the program or to start distributing
binaries.  If a GPLed program contains no FSF code, the FSF hasn't licensed
anything to you, so they can't demand anything of you.

So, I write program A and copyleft it.  I then derive program B from this,
but don't copyleft it.  Since I'm not going to sue myself over violating my
own license, I'm in no danger.  And the FSF can't sue me because they're
not a party to this license contract (they merely authored the text of the
license on A).  Neither is any recipient of B, so they can't force me to
distribute the sources to B.

-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar