Re: SFLC is SOL

[amicus_curious]

"Hadron" <hadronquark@gmail.com> wrote in message 
rs3c97-ep1.ln1@news.eternal-september.org">news:rs3c97-ep1.ln1@news.eternal-september.org...
> Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On Mar 15, 6:03 pm, RJack <u...@example.net> wrote:
> > > Rex Ballard wrote:
> > > > And before ANY of that goes to a jury, both sides have to show their
> > > >  cards to the Judge and to each other.
> > >
> > > Before ANY of this even goes to the discovery stage, the defendants
> > > will file FRCP Rule 12 Motions to Dismiss challenging the legal
> > > enforceability of the GPL contract. Only *after* determining the
> > > enforceability of the GPL will the court be in a position to determine
> > > what is relevant in its discovery orders. The enforceability of the
> > > GPL is a matter of law and is determined by the trier of law (the judge
> > > not the jury) hence the repeated language "the license speaks for
> > > itself". One thing to watch in the defendant Answers is the language of
> > > their defenses.
> >
> > The question at issue is whether copyright licenses are valid.
>
> Answer : yes they are. And no amount of whining and freetardery will
> change that.

Things are not that simple, else, why have lawyers?  If you, say, take a 
photograph of the Toledo skyline at nightfall and publish the image, you own 
the copyright to that image and no one can use it without your permission. 
But if someone else borrows your camera and goes to the same spot and takes 
an identical photograph, they can use their photo as they wish.  Copyright 
essentially pertains to "and expression, fixed in a media" as the act reads. 
Now consider that the binary form of a software program is the image.  Then 
the computer used to compile the software binary is, in effect, the camera 
and the source code is the directions on where to stand and where to point 
the camera.  Is that source code protected as a unique expression, too?  I 
don't think that question has been answered in court as yet.

If you go back to the first principles and see where the copyright is to 
protect the artist's expression and reason that is mainly due to protecting 
the artist's income from his work, the problem gets even more cloudy when 
there is no financial benefit accruing to the artist in the open source 
world.  No damage, no compensation in the contracts world, hence the 
insistence that the GPL is not a contract.