RE: GPL Violation of 'sveasoft' with GPL Linux Kernel/Busybox + code

From: Geert Uytterhoeven
Date: Mon Nov 08 2004 - 14:58:28 EST


On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Llu, 2004-11-08 at 01:14, David Schwartz wrote:
> > For those not familiar, sveasoft revokes your license to receive further
> > updates if you exercise your distribution rights under the GPL. I would
> > argue that conditioning the sale of a GPL'd work on a failure to exercise
> > your rights under the GPL is a "further restriction".

Did you have to pay first to receive updates later? I.e. you buy the device,
and will receive future updates for free (no money)?

> I don't see the problem. If I ship you GPL code then you have no "right"
> to updates from me. You are arguing about a right that never existed and
> for good reason. Do you think that if Linus personally emails you a
> snapshot you somehow acquire the right to demand newer updates from him
> ? or how about "I bought Red Hat 1.1 so you must send me 9.0". Both
> strike me as a little ridiculous and certainly not GPL granted rights.
>
> As a GPL code provider their duties to you are to the source to the GPL
> code they gave you binaries for (or other variant options in the
> license). They end there. I don't have to give your friend a copy, I
> don't have to give you updates.

That's true: you don't have an automatic right to receive updates for free.

But revoking a (paid) license if you do something that's explicitly allowed by
the license of (part of) the supplied software sounds a bit fishy to me...

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert (IANAL)

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
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