Dual-Licensing Situation

[Thomas Charron]

On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 12:20 PM, AR <aricvim at suddenlink.net> wrote:
> AR wrote:
> Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion.  I am getting
> through to some, and you have helped me think more about the situation.  Let
> me describe to you a real scenario that falls out directly as a result of
> this dual-licensing scheme:

  No one ever argued that what they're doing isn't in their best
interest.  What your not grasping is there is little to NOTHING that
can be done about it.  The GPLv2 isn't a license which people choose
to release their code under and then are bound by those terms of the
EFF.  I can modify the GPL to my hearts content, and rename it 'Toms
Public License'.  If I do that, then the EFF can go ahead and sue me
for copyright infringement.  It sounds to me like they've decided to
do something which the GPLv2 doesn't allow.  So technically, the EFF
could knock on their door and say 'excuse me'.  But since we haven't
seen the changes in their entirety, it's really hard to judge.  If
they added a conditional acceptance of the GPL, this may or may not be
legal depending on the language.

> I download and install Fedora 9.  Suppose it includes the distribution from
> this licensor, and I see from the accompanying documentation that it is
> licensed under the GPLv2.  So I develop this really nifty widget thingy.  A
> company comes to me and says, "Hey!  We have a proprietary license from this
> vendor, and we would like to have you dual-license your code so we can use
> it in our program, and we'll pay you such-and-such up front and a
> per-license royalty."  I say, "Cool.  Let me get one of their proprietary
> licenses so I can do that."
> I approach the licensor to get a license so I can dual-license my code, and
> I find out, "Sorry.  Since you accepted the terms of that license, you
> cannot be covered by the terms of our proprietary license, even though we
> didn't tell you that."  "That license," of course, is the GPLv2.
> There has *got* to be something wrong with that!  I had accepted
> restrictions that the initial license didn't even mention!

  There is something really wrong with this.  Primarily, it's just
REALLY bad business practice IMHO.  'Please, DONT give me money.  No
really, we dont want the money..'


> My contention is that they are doing at least one of two things, perhaps
> both:
> 1. Because the essential terms of the proprietary license depend on the
> acceptance or refusal of the GPLv2 license, they are materially one
> (invalid) license despite the fact that they are calling them two.

  THis may or not be valid, depending on the exact wording, which we
haven't seen.  From your descriptions, it sounds like they have
infringed on the EFF copywrite by modifying it and not distributing a
copy verbatim.

> 2. They are attempting to add further restrictions to the GPLv2 after I had
> already accepted it.

  The same, really.

-- 
-- Thomas