Copyleft/guide Changeset - 3158f32e477d

Changeset - 3158f32e477d

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Bradley Kuhn (bkuhn) - 10 years ago 2014-03-16 20:21:17
bkuhn@ebb.org

Introductory discussion of GPLv2 for this section that introduces it.

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compliance-guide.tex

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 % compliance-guide.tex                            -*- LaTeX -*-
 \part{A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance}
+\label{gpl-compliance-guide}
 \begin{center}
 {\parindent 0in
 This part is: \\
 \begin{tabbing}
 Copyright \= \copyright{} 2014 \= \hspace{.2in} Bradley M. Kuhn. \\
 Copyright \= \copyright{} 2008 \= \hspace{.2in} Software Freedom Law Center. \\
 \end{tabbing}
 \vspace{1in}
 Authors of this part are: \\
 Bradley M. Kuhn \\
 Aaron Williamson \\
 Karen M. Sandler \\
 \vspace{3in}
 The copyright holders of this part hereby grant the freedom to copy, modify,
 convey, Adapt, and/or redistribute this work under the terms of the Creative
 Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International License.  A copy of that
 license is available at

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@@ ... @@
 without modification, no matter who is publishing it.
 \end{quotation}
 This, like many inventive ideas, seems somewhat obvious in retrospect.  But,
 the FSF had some bright people and access to good lawyers when it started.
 It took almost five years from the first copyleft licenses to get to a
 generalized, reusable GPLv1.  In the context and mindset of the 1980s, this
 is not surprising.  The idea of reusable licensing infrastructure was not
 only uncommon, it was virtually nonexistent!  Even the early BSD licenses
 were simply copied and rewritten slightly for each new use\footnote{It
   remains an interesting accident of history that the early BSD problematic
   ``advertising clause'' (discussion of which is somewhat beyond the scope of
   this tutorial) lives on into current day, simply because while the
   University of California at Berkeley gave unilateral permission to remove
   the clause from \textit{its} copyrighted works, others who adapted the BSD
   license with their own names in place of UC-Berkeley's never have.}.  The
 GPLv1's innovation of reuable licensing infrastructure, an obvious fact
 today, was indeed a novel invention for its day\footnote{We're all just
   grateful that the FSF also opposes business method patents, since the FSF's
   patent on a ``method for reusable licensing infrastructure'' would have
   not expired until 2006!}.
 \section{The GNU General Public License, Version 2}
 The GPLv2 was released two and a half years after GPLv1, and over the
 following sixteen years, it became the standard for copyleft licensing until
 the release of GPLv3 in 2007 (discussed in more detail in the next section).
 While this tutorial does not discuss the terms of GPLv1 in detail, it is
 worth noting below the three key changes that GPLv2 brought:
 \begin{itemize}
 \item Software patents and their danger are explicitly mentioned, inspiring
   (in part) the addition of GPLv2\S\S5--7.  (These sections are discussed in
   detail in \S~\ref{GPLv2s5}, \S~\ref{GPLv2s6} and \S~\ref{GPLv2s7} of this
   tutorial.)
 \item GPLv2\S2's copyleft terms are expanded to more explicitly discuss the
   issue of combined works.  (GPLv2\S2 is discussed in detail in
   \S~\ref{GPLv2s2} in this tutorial).
 \item GPLv2\S3 includes more detailed requirements, including the phrase
  ``the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the
   executable'', which is a central component of current GPLv2 enforcement
   .  (GPLv2\S3 is discussed in detail in
   \S~\ref{GPLv2s3} in this tutorial).
 \end{itemize}
 The next chapter discusses GPLv2 in full detail, and readers who wish to dive
 into the section-by-section discussion of the GPL should jump ahead now to
 that chapter.  However, the most interesting fact to note here is how GPLv2
 was published with little fanfare and limited commentary.  This contrasts
 greatly with the creation of GPLv3.
 \section{The GNU General Public License, Version 3}
 \section{The Innovation of Optional ``Or Any Later'' Version}
 \section{Complexities of Two Simultaneously Popular Copylefts}
 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 \chapter{GPLv2: Running Software and Verbatim Copying}
 \label{run-and-verbatim}
 This chapter begins the deep discussion of the details of the terms of
 GPLv2\@. In this chapter, we consider the first two sections: GPLv2 \S\S
 --2. These are the straightforward sections of the GPL that define the
 simplest rights that the user receives.
 \section{GPLv2 \S 0: Freedom to Run}
 \label{GPLs0}
 \S 0, the opening section of GPLv2, sets forth that the work is governed by
 copyright law. It specifically points out that it is the ``copyright
 holder'' who decides if a work is licensed under its terms and explains
 how the copyright holder might indicate this fact.

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