Re: Elonex ONE+

Hi James,

> I think you will find that their obligation is primarily to the person(s)
> that licensed the code to
> them. While I know that they are obligated to make the code available, there
> is no contract
> between me and Elonex that says that - only a copyright agreement between
> Elonex and the
> GPL software's copyright holders (that they have accepted by conveying the
> covered
> works) specifying that Elonex should offer it to me.

You need to brush up on your copyright law then. I have a copyright on
AbiWord. The work's license says that another entity is granted the
right to re-distribute my work if it upholds the terms of the GPL v2
or later. The GPL v2 says that if that entity distributes the
copyrighted work to a third party (say, you), *you and only you* have
the right to ask for the source code. As they have not distributed the
copyrighted work to me, I have no right to ask for the code, even
though I own the copyright to AbiWord.

If they refuse to provide *you* a copy of the software, I as copyright
holder have legal recourse against them for violation of my copyright.

> J.M. Maurer wrote:
>>
>> If they refuse to give AbiWord's source code to you, then they ARE in
>> violation of the GPL. You don't need 'us' for that. YOU have the right
>> to receive a copy of *our* code. That's how the GPL works :)
>>
>>
>
> I am pretty sure that you are mistaken. *My* copyright is not being
> violated. I have suffered no
> injury in the eyes of the law. In effect, it would be as if Elonex have
> relicensed the software (in breach
> of an agreement *with someone else*) and provided a relicensed version to
> me. I would not be
> injured by this.

Nope, you're wrong. You are injured, because you're entitled to a copy
of the source code and you're not getting it. I'm not injured, because
I'm not entitled to the source code. Only once you're injured can I
file a tort against Elonex for violating the terms of the GPL.

> Remember, the GPL is *not* a contract, it is a copyright license.

Again, you need to brush up on your IP law.

Dom
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Received on Mon Aug 18 20:42:34 2008