Re: GPL Mere Aggregation question

[rjack]

avesty@gmail.com wrote:

> I have a commercial application that is distributed packaged in an
> installer that you can download. When a user installs the application
> I wanted to install some GPL software at the same time.

There was once a company called SCO that decided to to mix the GPL 
license in with its commercial software transactions. SCO in bankruptcy.

Four more companies who mixed GPL software into their commercial 
businesses have had GPL intimidation lawsuits filed against them in the 
last sixty days.

The people who wrote the GPL (the Free Software Foundation) still swear
"Licenses are not contracts" -- even though eighty years of unbroken 
case law precedent from the Supreme Court on down says otherwise.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html

If you violate a socialist belief of a GPL author you're  going to end 
up in Federal Court because you used their license. Do you really want 
to trust your commercial business to license interpretations written by 
Marxist crackpots?

Hint: No one has ever been sued under a BSD-style or Apache open source 
license. Wake up and smell the coffee.

Regards,
rjack :)

--- "Whether express or implied, a license is a contract 'governed by 
ordinary principles of state contract law.'"; McCoy v. Mitsuboshi 
Cutlery, Inc., 67. F.3d 917, (United States Court of Appeals for the 
Federal Circuit 1995) ---

--- "Although the United States Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101- 1332, 
grants exclusive jurisdiction for infringement claims to the federal 
courts, those courts construe copyrights as contracts and turn to the 
relevant state law to interpret them."; Automation by Design, Inc. v.
Raybestos Products Co., 463 F.3d 749, (United States Court of Appeals 
for the Seventh Circuit 2006) ---