The GPLv2 does not contain a no-revocation-by-grantor promise. (SFConservancy's Opinion Statement claiming otherwise is bullshit.)

From: vnsndalce
Date: Fri Jan 04 2019 - 02:07:55 EST

1016132

I also refuted the SFConservancy's "debunking" within 5 hours, on the LKML, of it's publishing its attempted defense of the GPLv2 (they were trying to misconstrue a clause in the GPLv2 as a promise by the grantor not to revoke, which it was not. A promise, even if it existed, the taker didn't pay any consideration for nor forego a legal right etc, so would even in that case be void), but everyone treats the issue as settled now.

(Said now more simply than initially:)

The clause you are referring to there is one that I have addressed previously.



It states that if a licensee violates the license and suffers automatic revocation, that licensees down the chain do not automatically in-turn have their licenses revoked.



No more, no less.



That clause is being cited as a "GPLv2 no revocation by grantor clause". It is not such a thing.



The SFConservancy etc never responded after I debunked their debunking.



There is no "no-backsies" clause in the GPLv2, and even if there was you did not pay for it.



The basis is very simple: you do not get what you do not pay something for.



YOU did not pay OWNER for his right to rescind. You didn't pay him anything. You just use his property.



He can say you can't anymore.

However when I talk to other lawyers, professors at the school I went to, they take it as a given that a license absent an interest is revocable.

When I talked to a relative who has worked in the legal field for decades he has confirmed the same thing: even if there is a clause that says the grantor will never revoke: if you didn't pay for it that clause is likely void.

The GPLv2 doesn't even contain such a clause (v3 explicitly adds such a clause, aswell as a term-of-years the length of the copyright term), and linux is licensed under version 2, not 3.

And, again, most licensees did not pay those programmers, who still own the copyright to their code, anything what-so-ever, so there is no secured interest even if Linux was under version 3 (which it isn't).