Re: GPLv3 comedy unfolding -- Landley: "Not Going There (tm)" (re 'license' vs 'contract')

[Alexander Terekhov]

Rob Landley wrote:
> 
> On Friday 15 June 2007 18:59:14 Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > So it's true: the GPL just gives you rights, and without it you have no
> > rights (other than fair use ones etc), and blah blah. But the distinction
> > between "license" vs "contract" really isn't a very important one in any
> > case.
> 
> Er, copyright law is federal, contract law is generally state level?  So not
> only does contract law vary a lot more by jurisdiction, but it's enforced by
> different courts than suits over copyright?  (You'll notice the GPL doesn't
> say which state law holds sway.  If it was a contract this would be kind of
> important.)
> 
> Also, in addition to the "exchange of value" bit there's "privity of contract"
> and "informed consent" when dealing with contract, which are cans of worms
> which can be avoided by Not Going There (tm)...
> 
> (These were largeish issues in the SCO vs Novell case, involving lots of
> motions in Utah detailed blow-by-blow on Groklaw...)
> 
> Rob

regards,
alexander.

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