Re: EASTERBROOK's "quick look" on the GPL and Wallace's claim

[Alexander Terekhov]

David Kastrup wrote:
[...]
> Last time I looked, the case _did_ involve copyright.

"For the past ten years a software copyright and patent license has
been circulated by way of the Internet.1 Titled the GNU General Public
License (“GPL”) (Ex A (GPL)) it has been utilized to publicly regulate
pooled and cross-licensed computer software, including the GNU/Linux
(“Linux”) operating system. The GPL license was intentionally designed to
remove the intellectual property contained in computer software from the
realm of competition."

> 
> > Copyleft requires all licensees to surrender right to charge for
> > derivative works.
> 
> Or negotiate different license terms.  Without copyleft, you _only_
> have the choice of negotiating different license terms.

Go try to negotiating different license terms for GPL'd stuff in Linux. 
The GPL is the only choice to obtain rights to property locked in the 
GPL pool (don't confuse it with non-bazaar models a la MySQL and 
Trolltech where no GPL-only forks exist). The GPL doesn't allow 
sublicensing under different "commercial" terms along the lines of the 
CPL/EPL/BSD/etc. And GPL co-conspirator FSF is contractually prohibited 
(RMS won't do it anyway) to offer assigned works under non-copyleft 
terms, if I recall IBM's copyright assignment letters correctly.

And, BTW, according to EASTERBROOK, "the GPL propagates from user to 
user and revision to revision: neither the original author, nor any 
creator of a revised or improved version, may charge for the software 
or allow any successor to charge."

Got it?

> 
> > "Copyright law gives authors a right to charge more".
> 
> Sure, for their own works.  

What do you mean? That improver's copyright in a derivative work is
less copyright (with less rights that copyright law gives authors) 
than copyright in original work? That's copyleft logic, not copyright.

regards,
alexander.