dear Bruce,
On Sun, 02 Jul 2017, Bruce Perens wrote:
> This might make a little more sense if you still can't
> understand: By operating under their previously-stated policy of
> denying further service to clients who exercise their right to
> distribute under the GPL license, Open Source Security
> Inc. creates an expectation that exercise of the re-distribution
> right required under the terms of the GPL will lead to business
> damage to the customer. This practice effectively is an added
> term to the license, and addition of such a term is prohibited
> under language in GPL section 6. This leads to termination of the
> GPL license granted to Open Source Security Inc., and thus to
> copyright infringement of the Linux Kernel by that entity. In
> addition, the GPL is breached as a contract from the copyright
> holders of the Linux software to which Open Source Security
> Inc. and the customer are both joined.
I first thought grsec was not in GPL violation, but then in your last
3 mails and this one you made the point very clear and I'm more than
half-way convinced (yet my opinion is of little value here, IANAL nor
a scholar in law)
Are there other cases in which a license (whatever license) has been
breached (and ruled as broken) by such a business arrangement?
My "feeling" is that this case breaks the GPL license especially
because the client can demonstrate that, by exercising his/her rights
granted by the license, a damage is caused by a business arrangement
enforced by those who distributed the software under that very
license.
it is overall an interesting case which may or may not confirm the
viability of a new (is it new?) business model in open source.
thanks for the forthcoming article post btw, will read it.
ciao
::
[DNG] on the supposed grsec gpl vio…
