Re: [LMAO] El Reg: "GPLv2 - copyright code or contract?"

[Alan Mackenzie]

In gnu.misc.discuss Moshe Goldfarb <moshegoldfarb@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:30:35 +0200, Hadron wrote:

>> Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

>>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/15/black_duck_gpl_web_conference_copenhaver_radcliffe/

>>> "GPLv2 - copyright code or contract?

>>> Open source legal minds unravel license

>>> By Austin Modine in San Francisco ? Get more from this author

>>> Posted in Software, 15th October 2009 06:02 GMT

>>> Two prominent IP lawyers have warned that the all-pervasive General
>>> Public License version 2 (GPLv2) contains legally ambiguous wording that
>>> may be problematic for licensees.

>> Impossible.

>> Peter Koehlmann told us here in COLA that is was "easy" and only
>> "windiots" could not understand it. He is, of course, quite insane.

> Just about every single one of these "what's the GPL" type
> threads goes on for pages.

Yes.  Ghastly, isn't it?

> This pretty much confirms that it is quite complex and in fact
> could possibly be dangerous depending upon interpretation.

Not at all.  It's equally likely, in fact more likely, certain personages 
wish to sustain the illusion that it's "quite complex", and "possibly
dangerous", for reasons best known to themselves.  Simply reading it is
sufficient to see its simplicity.  What is complex is the copyright law
under which the GPL must operate.

Software writers of good faith have no difficulty at all with the GPL.
Only to those seeking loopholes in it in order to violate its intentions
is there any "danger" or "complexity".

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).