Re: Questions regarding licensing issues

[nkavv at physics dot auth dot gr]

Hi,

> You can't expect to get legal advice from a list like this, and if
> you do get advice, you can't trust it. You have to consult an attorney
> to evaluate issues like this, and even then you can't get
> guaranteed definitive advice. Copyright issues are complex,
> as Supap Kirtsaeng is discovering in his trip to the supreme court.

"Well, sh!t sir, I'd hate to see this happen"
-- random movie quote, not my saying

And I don't know Supap.

> Furthermore, no one has any interest in assuring you that what
> you are doing is OK in advance. The GPL is about encouraging
> people to use the GPL, and the gcc community does not really
> have an interest in making it easier for people to follow
> some other path.

AFAICS GPL,v3+ restricts my freedom... I thought that its purpose was  
to protect my freedom. Anything GPL'ed would remain GPL'ed. If you'd  
read my email carefully you would see that I propose two things: 1) a  
plugin, 2) a backend that would be open-source, GPL, v3.

I only want to protect my work (the non-GPL software), basically due  
to the fact that although I have developed something like 5-10  
patentable processes that are implemented as software within non-GPL  
software, I don't have the resources to patent them. And I mean a  
patent regarding the process or "apparatus" and certainly not the  
software (justifiably unpatentable!)

For instance, I have a world-first process of applying operation  
chaining directly on VHDL codes, without any graph-based or IR-based  
analyses. I can't affort the $25k patent, just don't want to disclose  
my hard work. At the same time, I acknowledge how much GPL software  
helps it is really important e.g. in the public infrastructure. I  
don't find anything demonic in being on both sides of the mirror.  
Everyone is if you elaborate deeply on this, it is yourself on both  
sides, right?

I know I have come to a scheme that I will not violate the GPL. I  
guess you have to further restrict my freedom in GPL, version 4, so I  
could not apply it. I hope this will not happen. In this economic  
turmoil, all good guys are needed. The big picture (for this  
particular sector of IT) is how to open jobs to more capable people,  
regain and facilitate growth. Maybe the FSF are the bad guys after all.

> The only thing that would assure you that what you are planning
> is OK is a specific intepretation of how the GPL applies by the
> copyright holder.

I'm pretty certain I have correctly interpreted GPL,v3. I have good  
reasons to believe that. However, I'm willing to read your  
interpretation of the GPL,v3, if you have any.

> BTW, it is no surprise that you got no response from
> licensing@fsf.org.

I thought this was their job. Obviously I was wrong. I'm not trying to  
circumvent the GPL just to adhere to it. Is this so wrong? Then what  
is the point of the exception clauses? They are there but you don't  
want people to understand how to use them?


Sincerely yours,
Nikolaos Kavvadias