What you've overlooked is that under your hypothetical, that someone
cannot be sued by the "GPL folk", EVEN IF the program is released ONLY
under GPL. For example, if I release a program, "bar", under GPL, and
Microsoft takes it and modifies it and does not release the source,
then I can sue them. You can't. Richard Stallman can't. The FSF
can't. No matter how much you, RMS, or the FSF, want GPL to be enforced,
I'm the only one who can sue MS in this case.
A license to a piece of code basically gives circumstances under which the
owner of the copyright promises not to sue you for using the code in ways
that copyright law gives the owner exclusive rights to. So if I release
"bar" under GPL, I'm saying "if you follow GPL, I won't sue you". I'm
still free to come up with other terms and say "if you follow those
other terms, I won't sue you".
In your specific hypothetical, "I was using the GPL'd sources" and
"I've got permission from the author" are simply two ways of stating
the same thing. The GPL *is* permission from the author, and that is
all that it is.
--Tim Smith
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