The GPLv2 is not a contract, it is a revocable license

Linux can be rendered to dust in America if the rightsholders choose individually to do so regarding their piece.

No it DOES NOT.

You have ZERO rights to the work, by default.
ANY allowance the grantor has given is a gratuity.

Such as PERMISSION to modify and to redistribute his work.
You do NOT have the right to do that. It IS a _CRIMINAL_ offense in the US of A to do so.

The grantor saves you from prison, saves your LIFE, for... nothing.

And you have the GALL to say there is another side to this?
When he does not even know your name?

What SCUM.

Why is this? They are still doing this now (ignoring your post even).
Why do they always feel entitled?

Attached: stallmeme.png (400x300, 153.37K)

Hello samefag.

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17776182574171214893&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
TLDR op is a faggot

Silver Seer (SS) releases a work under GPLv2 (no later versions)
Black Rogue (BR) then makes modifications in 1995 to the work adding some distributed file system code.
In 1996 Black Rogue (BR) decideds to distrbute the work, he attaches a copy of the same license SS used and sends the code and such to
Magnus Maintainer (MM). Black Rogue (BR) continues to update his derivative work until 2002 by sending updates to Magnus Maintainer(MM) From 2002 till today he ceases work, instead choosing to listen to the combined works of Tupac and 50 Cent (respectivly).
Magnus Maintainer (MM), from 1996 till 2002 distributes the modification back to Silver Seer, as well as hundreds of other persons.
From 2002 onward Magnus Maintainer (MM) continues to distribute the last update of Black Rogue's code.
Quick Fast Act (QFA) starts to make modifications to Black Rogues code in 2003. He sends his modifications to Magnus Maintainer(MM) under the same license with no additional terms.
Magnus Maintainer (MM) distributes Black Rogue's code with Quick Fast Act's additions onward until 2007.
Silver Seer (SS) goes on camera deriding the GPLv3. He only likes v2. It is unclear as to why. He has his reasons.
Wonder Woman (WW) begins to work on Silver Seer's project in 2006.
In 2007 Magnus Maintainer is captured by White Nationalists and tortured for pressing a "like" button on a youtube video depicting 10 year old anime girls all marrying one lucky japanese fellow. The White Nationalists call Magnus Maintainer a Gnome and tell him how the Pheonix abrogated his Gnomish God's laws that allow all men to marry young girls, and that to like the Gnomish God's laws is to be "gay" and also a Gnome.
Magnus Maintainer never returns, living out his life with horrible injuries due to liking cute girls. Thank you White Men.
Confused Cactus Rex (CCR) becomes interested in Silver Seer's project in 2009.
Wonder Woman (WW) takes over maintainership of various stable subsystems including Black Rogue and QFA's code in 2012
Wonder Woman (WW) distributes the code to billions of people, including Confused Cactus Rex (CCR).
Confused Cactus Rex(CCR) makes some seemingly superficial changes to Black Rogue's (BR) code, to make it "easier to read and more approachable". The code is slowed by another 10 percent.
Magnus Maintainer(MM) commits suicide in 2015. America applauds the Proud White Nationalists who "proteded de whyte wummans". The White Nationaists push for a ban on Anime and for muslims countries to be bombed with greater vigor because "muslims marry little girls, which is against the interests of white wuuumans".

Black Rogue (BR) is offended at the actions of Confused Cactus Rex (CCR) and Wonder Woman (WW), aswell as the inaction of Quick Fast Act (QFA); he surmises that the Silver Seer developer community is acting like "white bitches" and notes "what does one expect from a bunch of white men: they ain't really men: they ain't really people: they is just things that live to server the white woman, like Wonder Woman (WW)".

Black Rogue is disgusted and remebers, as 50 Cent might say, "them bitches ain't paid me shit".

Black Rogue rescinds permission to use, modify, redistribute, his property from Wonder Woman (WW), Confused Cactus Rex (CCR) and Quick Fast Act (QFA), noting of QFA: "that faggot".

Black Rogue has not violated the terms of the license.
Black Rogue distributed his derivative work, from 1996 till 2002, under the terms of the license while he was distributing the work, and he proffered no additional terms, and certaintly no additional restrictive terms.
Black Rogue has not distributed anything since 2002.
The license made no mention of revocability regarding the copyright holder.
Thus Black Rogue never promised nor agreed to any clause proporting to limit his right to rescind permission regarded his property (code he wrote). The terms of the license did not address this default right of the property owner.

Thus he has comported with the terms of the license Silver Seer proffered, and has also exercised his default right to rescind a license at his will under property law.

Nope.

Even Lawrence Rosen agrees that the GPLv2 is a bare license and revocable by the grantor. Your boy who wrote "Open Source Licensing"

illinoisjltp.com/journal/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kumar.pdf

Read it and weep you FUCKING piece of shit.Page 12 starts the relevant discussion.
Page 16 begins the explanation of all the ways the GPL is not a contract.

Jacobsen v. Katzer, 535 F. 3d 1373 - Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit 2008
0) Jurisdiction is the 9th Circuit (California etc)
1) Case is about the Artistic License (not GPL version 2)
2) District (lower) court makes a finding based on contract law, and uses it's own finding to dispose of the copyright infringement claim.

3) Jacobsen appeals the finding that he does not have a cause of action for copyright infringement

4) "Under Ninth Circuit law, an order granting or denying a preliminary injunction will be reversed only if the district court relied on an erroneous legal premise or abused its discretion. Wright v. Rushen, 642 F.2d 1129, 1132 (9th Cir.1981). A district court's order denying a preliminary injunction is reversible for factual error only when the district court rests its conclusions on clearly erroneous findings of fact. Sports Form, Inc. v. United Press Int'l, Inc., 686 F.2d 750, 753 (9th Cir.1982)."
4a) 1379 - A contains a long passage of non-binding dicta, waxing eloquently about the benifits of opensource and opencontent licenses
Later the court cites Nimmer on Copyright,
(Nimmer himself who has said that the GPLv2 is NOT a contract, there being no consideration, amongst other things)

5)*1380 "Thus, if the terms of the Artistic License allegedly violated are both covenants and conditions, they may serve to limit the scope of the license and are governed by copyright law. If they are merely covenants, by contrast, they are governed by contract law. See Graham, 144 F.3d at 236-37 "
6)*1382 "For the aforementioned reasons, we vacate and remand. While Katzer/Kamind appears to have conceded that they did not comply with the aforedescribed conditions of the Artistic License, the District Court did not make factual findings on the likelihood of success on the merits in proving that Katzer/Kamind violated the conditions of the Artistic License. Having determined *1383 that the terms of the Artistic License are enforceable copyright conditions,"

-------

So what's your point?

The lower court decided the Artistic License was a contract, and thus copyright damages were unavailable.
The higher court REVERSED the lower court and said it's conditions are enforceable under copyright (ie: a license, rather than a contract)

The GPLv2 was drafted explicitly to avoid any language that could be construed as contractual terms.
In copyright cases, the injured party (the copyright holder) can file in the federal jurisdiction of his choosing. He is the one injured.
Now, he should _not_ send a cease and desist letter, since that can create a federal controversy and the would be defendant can rush to the courthouse to file a declaratory judgement action.

Hello samefag. You are really autistic about this one. If only you had even a single legally proven point.

Got nothing to say? I read your cited case and it
1) Had nothing to do with the GPL v2 license.
2) Reversed a district court decision which framed the Artistic license in contract terms, instead telling said lower court to treat it as a copyright license instead.

What is your fucking point? That cited case does not help you.

You were getting all worked up after reading the non-binding dicta where the court spoke of how wonderful opensource licenses are and how they help the public and how sometimes people contribute back to some opensource projects etc and maybe sometimes that is consideration.
Do you even know what dicta is?
Fucking moron.

The actual finding of the case was: No the district court was _wrong_: the artistic license is not to be construed in contractual terms: instead it is to be read as a copyright license.

Completely counter to how you read it, being distracted by the dicta.

illinoisjltp.com/journal/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kumar.pdf

Enjoy the citations you FUCKING piece of shit.

It's my fucking thread; I can same fag all I like, SJW faggot.

Got nothing to say? I read your cited case and it

1) Had nothing to do with the GPL v2 license.

2) Reversed a district court decision which framed the Artistic license in contract terms, instead telling said lower court to treat it as a copyright license instead.

What is your fucking point? That cited case does not help you.

You were getting all worked up after reading the non-binding dicta where the court spoke of how wonderful opensource licenses are and how they help the public and how sometimes people contribute back to some opensource projects etc and maybe sometimes that is consideration.

Do you even know what dicta is?

Fucking moron.

The actual finding of the case was: No the district court was _wrong_: the artistic license is not to be construed in contractual terms: instead it is to be read as a copyright license.

Completely counter to how you read it, being distracted by the dicta.

illinoisjltp.com/journal/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kumar.pdf

Enjoy the citations you FUCKING piece of shit.

Hello again (you). Nice of you to get so triggered you respond 3 times to every single post. Nice reddit spacing BTW faggot. Go back to /sovcitizen/ with your psuedo-legal bullshit.

How can someone be this much of a faggot?

Being a huge autist doesn't make him wrong.

If he had even a single relevant legal ruling on the GPL to back up his case that would be great. Until thing hes just sperging out with his muh opinion piece.

IE: You can file the suit in any district that is amiable to personal juristiction over the defendant:
His place of domicile, where he was doing business regarding your property, where the violation occured, etc.
Often these are in different juristictions, especially in copyright cases.
So you need to choose the juristiction which will be most favorable to you.

If you send a Cease and Desist, the defendant will race to the court house, of a district where personal juristiction can extend over you (which may be various ones) and will attempt to start a declaratory judgement action in the juristiction with personal juristiction over you that is most favorable to his case, or just most inconvienient to you.

Legal rulings involving the GPL?

There are virtually none in the USA, other than some noise during the SCO trials, which are of little relevance here. Where the GPL was even involved can be counted on one hand, almost all settled.

For there to be rulings involving the GPL the copyright holders would have to be bold enough to file suit. Techies won't even stand up to their girlfriends, let alone a potential legal adversary.

If you had a case that suggested the GPL v2 wasn't a bare license, and wasn't revocable, you would cite it.

You haven't, yet you still make claims even when Nimmer himself has opined that the GPL is NOT a contract, there is NO consideration, it IS a bare license akin to a property license and there is nothing to stop the owner from pulling it just like any other property license.

Nimmer is the preeminent scholar on copyright, and the case you cited even cites him on other matters within the dicta you so love.

I'm a licensed attorney. Why do you confuse my words with "pseudo legal bullshit"? Is it because a lay moron can't tell the difference?

Holy fuck, when did this board become whining about legal issues and nothing else? I don't care about lawyersprach. Post fucking technology, idiots.

Ah so you have literally no evidence

There is always at least one faggot in every field that will say something retarded. Just look at doctors.

By modifying or distributing the Program… you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it
Parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance

0) Read the full clause, not a selective quotation handed to you by the SFConservancy:

""""""
" 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance."
""""""

This clause is clearly dealing with the situation where a licensee's license is automatically revoked for violation of the terms - this clause clarifies that sublicensees licenses are not in-turn revocated (and yes, revocated is a word).

( Revocate \Rev"o*cate\, v. t. [L. revocatus, p. p. of revocare. See {Revoke}.] To recall; to call back. [Obs.] [1913 Webster])

1) What consideration did they pay to grantor for that clause to be in effect?

2) That does not run against the grantor regarding his own piece of code. He owns the copyright on the code. He has never promised the creator of the original work that he would not rescind any gratuitous license grant regarding his own property. He is not a licensee of his own code.

""""
" 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
""""
"

3) The "linux" team has added additional restrictive terms to the program: the CoC: which promises undue public scrutiny against anyone committing the "crime" of proffering a derivative work for public consumption. Said additional writing relates back to the kernel; just because it is in a separate file does not mean it's not "additional restrictive terms"

Tell me exactly how I am to supply you with citations regarding a non-existent case of first impression?

Do you know what a case of first impression is? No? Got to look it up?

Do you feel that Raymond T. Nimmer is also "one faggot bla bla bla"?

Tell me what you think is and why you think it is "psudo legal bullshit".

You have been given a legal article with full citation regarding the issue.
There is no on-point case, as their has been little in GPL littigation thusfar.
YOU have not been able to find a case to cite yourself, what you have cited is a care regarding the ARTISTIC LICENSE where, infact, the findings actually run AGAINST your vague assertions. (the higher court told the lower court to treat the AL as enforceable under copyright, not contract). You are easily distracted by dicta and ignore the actual binding findings of a case: suggesting you know not the difference between the two.

Every point and selective quotation you have made has been refuted, it was refuted before you brought up the issue.

It seems it is YOU who are not the lawyer.
Just a lay idiot who repeats whatever the SFConservancy posts.

Then explain why Oracle, with lawyers that are undoubtedly fucking smarter than you, didn't simply beat Google over the head with this when it came to Java in Android.

...

If the GPL were operative in that instance, Oracle would not have won. What is your point?

That you don't have one and the biggest legal case ever in this domain proves you wrong.

So are you suggesting that Oracle's lawyers could have told Oracle to re-license their code to fuck Google over, even though they won the case without needing to? If that's what you're saying, that's not very compelling.

So if I understand what you mean by a bare license, anyone who redistributes Linux is granted that right by its rights holders (Linus et al.), and in doing so are bound by the terms of the GPL. This means that anyone who redistributes Linux is not able to revoke GPL, because they are bound by its terms to use GPL. This is similar to a contract, because it applies to both parties. However, this contract does not apply to the original rights holders themselves, and they are free to revoke their GPL license if they choose to.

As a thought experiment, if all the Linux's rights holders decided that they would switch from GPL to a public domain license, then, suddenly, redistributors would not be bound by the GPL, and would be free to do the same, or even re-license to a commercial license. This indeed would undermine the GPL as a contract, because its enforcement ultimately relies on the whims of a regress of rights holders. However, Linux has been developed by thousands of people, so it would be nearly impossible for all of Linux's rights holders to set something like this in motion, right?

This raises a question, which is whether these rights can be transferred. From Disney we know that copyright extends beyond the death of the creators and can be held by an organization. But can that even apply to Linux? Without living human beings holding the rights to GPL code, I'd assume it would just fall into public domain? Or, would the rights end up being held by Torvalds, or even the Linux Foundation? The latter possibility is interesting, and threatening, because it suggests that the majority of the rights to Linux's source code could end up in the hands of a single organization, in due time. I'm guessing this largely comes down to copyright precedent, which I don't know much about. I spent some time thinking about this and, if true, it completely re-contextualizes current events with Github being purchased by MS and becoming infested with ideologues. Perhaps Silicon Valley is preparing to get its foot in the door, so to speak, to gain influence over the foundation in the future.

He also thinks the appellate court telling a district court to construe the Artistic License terms as a copyright license and NOT as a contract somehow helps his case.... that the GPL is a contract...

He was distracted by the one page of non-binding dicta in the middle, where the actual ruling of the case fell on the side of license and not contract for the Artistic License.

(Finding a contract would have limited the damages severely)

Nowhere in the GPLv2 does it say that a rights-holder promises never to revoke permission to use his property.

People like to selectively quote the last line in clause 4, but a full reading of the clause shows it is about not automatically rescinding the licenses from those downsteam of a violator:

""""""
" 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance."
""""""

So a creator of a derivative work would not be violating any provision.

This is why GPLv3 adds said specific provision.

The fact that that line is within said enumerated section and starts with "However," shows that it relates back specifically to the preceding lines.

Additionally, regardless of the text of the license, since no consideration was given for any promises whatsoever, they are inoperable against the grantor. The grantor can rescind as of right. The licensee did not pay for any of the supposed promises. There is no contract.

The licensee might then try a state-law detrimental reliance defense, but that would require some showing of reliance on a promise by the grantor to him.

(And remeber, the imagined promise not to revoke simply does not exist in the text)

Said defense simply would not work against any future prospective licensees either: once the permission is revoked. Future prospective licensees would simply have no defense.

The rights would end up being held by the descendants of the copyright holder.

They can be. However, unlike in other areas of law, you can't just assign the rights regarding a lawsuit under copyright. You have to assign parts of the various exclusive rights to the new party, they can then sue to enforce current and future violations of those rights.

They would be transferred to the estates of the deceased.

Only if they purchase the rights from the current holders.

That's very informative, thanks for answering my questions. It doesn't sound as bad as I thought.

My thinking with the transfer of rights was that individual Linux developers won't likely leave the rights to their code with friends or family in their wills. Then it comes down to the decision of their executor/administrator. I imagine a situation where these people are going to look at the Linux Foundation as having the best claim to the rights, and transfer them to the organization for safe keeping.

ITT: I'm too lazy/dumb to read the GPLv2

Wrong. If the will doesn't specify, the property passes via the defaults of the state: usually to the issue (children), grandchildren, or parents, siblings, etc.

So it ends up with the family. The executor has no say regarding the dispensation of the articles, he just does the work. Basic Wills/Trusts/andEstates 101, comon man.

It's a very short document. Is this the "reasonability" of the new"linuxman"?

Notice how the detractors have nothing to say, having been blown out of the water.

What would lain do?

tl;dr the GPL is kike shit no better than any other proprietary dogshit
Fuck this gay shit, I've had enough, here's a new license I just made to prevent all kike shit.

addendum

Doesn't state a term of years.
Courts will interpret that missing term as "as long as the parties agree"

See the addendum, but just because fuck you and fuck lawyers, here's another addendum.

That clause runs against public policy and won't be given effect by the court.

Add an arbitration clause instead.

Here's a third addendum

Violates the RAP (rule against perpetuates) which is applied to personal property in several important jurisdiction, might make the grant void from inception.

That runs against public policy for the same reason the previous clause did.
Also "dead to rights" cannot simply be declared.

Add an arbitration clause which specifies a forum that is favorable to your purposes instead.

Your license is almost as bad as most "Classic" opensource licenses :P

Fourth addendum

Lawyers wouldn't be needed if womyn worshiping faggots didn't try to CoC each-other passive aggressively constantly and by proxy.

Original work is a term defined in law. You can't simply declare it. Again this clause would be given no effect by the court.

(Which makes your license a GREAT classic Opensource / Free Software license :D )

You should publish your license and see if you can get it accepted by the OSI and FSF (please do this).

It actually is kinda like the 1990s OSS licenses.

Fifth addendum

Sixth addendum

Seventh addendum

Bump

You can define ambiguous terms etc, but can't declare legal outcomes that the court itself would : you can't force the court's hand.

Ayyo, boi, whatchu callin u new opensource license?

Bump

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