Psystar/Apple/First sale on Groklaw

[David Kastrup]

<URL:http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091010152322226>

Just for the record: I quite disagree with Pamela Jones on her
assessment of the situation.  She basically thinks that "first sale"
should only be claimed by some fuzzy notion of "end user" or not at all,
and that any different interpretation would be devastating to Open
Source and the GPL in particular.

In my opinion, first sale is really rather fundamental to making the
world act somewhat sanely and predictably for a customer (and most
"licenses" try undermining it).  As mentioned before on this group,
first sale may be regarded as a potential base for a loophole in GPL
licensing (and other cases), but it is not apparently an important
loophole.

The biggest loophole obviously would be if software copyright were
abolished altogether, and the results would be worth the size of the
loophole.

So I am quite more relaxed than Pamela Jones about the effects, since
weakening the GPL in this aspect together with other licensing schemes
does not shift the balance much for the customer.

Most "licenses" try abolishing the meaning of first sale altogether, and
I find that more of a nuisance for the customer than the effects of the
purported loophole appears to be in practice.

-- 
David Kastrup