🚀 go-pugleaf

If there is enough interest, I will repost details of my argument why the
provision in the GPL requiring one to make available source code for one's
own programs is unenforceable.

The theory that you can't avoid the GPL by having your distributee do the
linking is absolutely unsupportable.  If a lawyer really came up with that
idea, he or she ought to be disciplined, IMHO.

The knee-jerk response of "The GPL doesn't force you to give away your
code-- just don't use GNU software" is not responsive to my argument that
the GPL is unenforceable.  The copyright statutes do impose some limitations
on what can and what can't go in a license, and the simple existence of a
quid pro quo isn't dispositive of the issue.  GPL proponents, I think, will
readily admit that the GPL can't legally force anyone to give up his own
copyright, and that the FSF doesn't acquire ownership of the copyright to
anyone's source code by operation of the GPL.  I have concluded that these
people don't understand what it means to own a copyright.  (No sarcasm
intended-- intellectual property law is highly esoteric, and not well
understood by most lawyers.)

I'm sure the motivation behind the GPL is to undo some of the bad effects
of an overprotective copyright law, but I find it ironic that the GPL
actually goes beyond the copyright law to do so.

John P. Kozma
kozma@comus.cs.tulane.edu