[Gllug] SmoothWall Corporate

[Alex Hudson]

On Sat, 2002-01-19 at 18:26, Richard Cottrill wrote:
> I think that's just the point. New laws aren't made until they're tested in
> court. The GPL is only as good as the electrons that it flies about on until
> a court says otherwise. Likewise for most EULAs BTW.

The GPL is vastly simpler than EULAs, and it's based on incredibly
strong grounds. I would be amazed if it was ever tested in court,
because there is simply no argument. EULAs govern _use_ of software, the
GPL doesn't - only copying. You have no valid claim to copy software at
all, whereas buying/using software is a big grey area.

> I fully expect the general counsel would
> love to find some recalcitrant developer to REALLY thrash out the limits of
> the GPL. 

Eben has stated before he would love to take it to court; but there has
never been a sustained violation (that I'm aware of, anyway). Even
Microsoft distribute some GPL software (or, at least, used to) - if
there was some way of defeating it, I would have thought they would have
at least tried.

Cheers,

Alex.

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