Re: Artifex v. Diebold: "The GPL is non-commercial!"

[amicus_curious]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message 
news:uVDZk.17381$st1.3019@newsfe10.iad...
> David Kastrup wrote:
> > Why? Then the software would not be redistributable
>
> No, you don't understand. He thinks that any software that
> has already been released under the GPL may be freely used
> by anyone without restriction, because the permissions
> granted by the GPL apply even though its restrictions don't.
>
> It's as if he thinks he can go into a car dealership, listen
> to the salesman say "you can take this car if you pay me
> $35,000" and decide to observe the "you can take this car"
> part but ignore the "if you pay me $35,000" part. In the
> real world, this leads to unpleasant consequences, but the
> real world has very little to do with his fever dreams.

In either case it would seem to be a violation of the contract terms.  In 
your example, that is the only violation and when you do not pay the $35,000 
you are in violation of the contract and subject to being sued for the 
amount agreed upon plus costs of collection which are clearly the damages 
that would be incurred by the dealer.

In the case of the GPL, it is not so clear.  If it is the same thing, as you 
say, the suit would be for the damage caused to the original author due to 
the violator not publishing the source code.  How much would that be?  I 
think what the GPL proponents want to happen is that the violation is termed 
as a copyright violation and the violator denied the right to distribute. 
So far the cases described seem to have hinged on the violator not 
publishing the original source.  I have not seen any case anywhere that the 
violator was explicitly said to have added some useful modification that the 
violator wanted to keep proprietary.  These cases have been settled by the 
violator agreeing to publish that original source.  The more recent cases 
seem to have a small cash payment for the plaintiff lawyers as well, but 
they have been settlements, not judgements.