linux-kernel - RE: how about mutual compatibility between Linux's GPLv2 and GPLv3?

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Message-ID: <MDEHLPKNGKAHNMBLJOLKAEHFEPAC.davids@webmaster.com>
Date:	Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:04:34 -0700
From:	"David Schwartz" <davids@...master.com>
To:	"Alexandre Oliva" <oliva@....ic.unicamp.br>
Cc:	"Linux-Kernel@...r. Kernel. Org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: how about mutual compatibility between Linux's GPLv2 and GPLv3?

> > Treating ordinary use as a copyright privilege leads to
> > nonsensical results
> > no matter what you do. For example, you get that I can drop copies of my
> > poem from an airplane and then sue anyone who reads it.

> Who was talking about reading?

They are both ordinary use. It is crazy to treat the ordinary use of a work
as a copyright privilege. If you do this, you get insane results. For
example, coloring in the pages of a coloring book is, arguably, creating a
derivative work. But you don't need a license to do this, because it's the
ordinary use.

My poem from airplanes example is just an example. You get analogously crazy
results if you treat ordinary use of other works as a right under copyright.

> You can read programs as much as you
> can read poems.  But since you (normally) can't run poems, copyright
> law doesn't talk about this, just like it doesn't distinguish source
> from object code of a poem.

You get lucicrous results from copyright laws if lawful physical possession
(of a copy made with consent of the copyright holder) does not grant the
right to ordinary use. You get the same ludicrous results with patents
(imagine if I can buy a product from IBM whose ordinary use always violates
an IBM patent and then IBM can sue me for it or if they use this to prevent
me from selling the product or giving it away).

> But software is different.  So different
> that it's governed by a separate law in Brazil, which could be
> qualified as a subclass of copyright law.  And this law states that
> running programs requires permission from the copyright holder.

So do I have to buy a program and then negotiate the right to run it
separately? That seems very crazy.

> If you find that odd, you may have an idea of how ludicrous patents on
> software, business methods et al are.  At least copyright regulation
> of execution saves us from a few abusive EULAs, created with the
> purpose of, let's see, regulating execution.

Quite the reverse. If execution is a copyright right, then I might need to
agree to a license or conract to get it. If execution is not a copyright
right, then I am safe from such craziness.

> And then, since it's
> already there, why not use it for other restrictions beneficial to the
> vendor that a copyright license couldn't establish?

Jurisdictions that treat ordinary use as a copyright right are simply
insane. I am probably one of the stronger supporters of intellectual
property rights (copyright and patent, not necessarily UCC and EULA issues)
that you will find on this list, and I think that treating ordinary use as a
right is simply insane.

DS

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