Re: More FSF hypocrisy

[Rjack]

Keith Thompson wrote:
> Rjack <user@example.net> writes: [...]
> > Is the license:
> >
> > ******************** Open Source License 
> > ***************************
> >
> > You may copy, make derivative works, and distribute those works
> >  that are based on the covered source code provided that you 
> > first murder your mother.
> >
> > ********************************************************************
> >
> >
> >
> > enforceable? Of course not. It contains an illegal condition.
>
> I am not a lawyer but I'm sure a license cannot require you to 
> murder your mother.  But one could interpret the above 
> hypothetical license as simply saying that you may not, under any
>  (legal) circumstances, copy, make derivative works, or
> distribute the specified works.
>
> Consider a license that says:
>
> You may copy, make derivative works, and distribute those works 
> that are based on the covered source code provided that you first
>  compute to the last decimal place the value of pi.
>
> The condition is not illegal, merely impossible.  I'd say that 
> the above is equivalent to:
>
> You may not copy, make derivative works, or distribute those 
> works that are based on the covered source code.

Wrong.

Since the license is strictly construed against the drafter the
license, because of promissory estoppel, would provide a defense to
copyright infringement.

If that were not the case, everybody and his brother would write a
copyright license that contained illegal or impossible (actually
"unenforceable") terms and then sue everyone who relied on it.

> > Just like the GPL contains an illegal condition.
>
> And what condition would that be?

Violation of 17 USC 301. The GPL also violates contractual
privity requirements for enforceability.

> Does the GPL require, as a precondition, that you commit some 
> illegal act, or did you mean something else not covered by your 
> analogy?  Exactly what "illegal condition" does the GPL contain?