[copyleft-next] "reasonable time period" Termination enforceability

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Wed Aug 1 02:01:06 UTC 2012


On 07/31/2012 07:54 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> I also somewhat get why the second number must be 30 days (i.e.,
> shorter), because the copyright holder has to ramp up legal action
> *after* the termination is permanent, so waiting 30 days really means
> waiting 90 or even 180 to get a Court to issue an injunction, since the
> 30 day mark is merely your *filing* date.

That is interesting, but you seem to be inventing a post-hoc
justification for the 30-day provision that has no connection to why
it's actually there.

Historically what happened was:
1) FSF got rid of automatic termination and added an unconventional
60-day repose provision that was originally worded in a way that many
found quite confusing
2) Some commercial vendors and users, who didn't particularly
understand what the FSF was trying to achieve with the 60-day repose
provision, urged the FSF to add a cure provision (a common element of
commercial software licensing agreements)
3) The FSF added a 30-day cure provision that was sort of integrated
with the 60-day repose provision though improving the language of the
latter. The idea for a 30-day cure provision didn't come from the FSF,
but I believe it was the FSF that insisted that it be limited to
first-time violators.
4) Person(s) associated with GPL enforcement in Germany later raised
concerns about the absence of any automatic termination language.

The end result was what we have today, which is automatic termination
coupled with possibilities for "provisional" and permanent automatic
reinstatement, all integrated with the 30-day cure and 60-day repose
constructs.

In other words, let's not establish some myth that the FSF sat down
and decided to draft the perfect logical alternative to GPLv2-style
automatic termination and thereby came up with what we have today in
GPLv3.

> Anyway, as I rereview GPLv3ยง8, I'm again convinced all moving parts are
> necessary.  

Sure, you can decide now that it all works out perfectly and any other
result would have been suboptimal. Our friends at Mozilla certainly
like the GPLv3 provision well enough. But if that's so, it is
serendipitous. Me, while I can see good and interesting things in the
GPLv3 termination provision, I just think it's way more complicated
than a termination provision needs to be. And I know from experience
that it's hard for some people to understand.

- Richard




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