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

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Thu Aug 2 03:21:19 UTC 2012


On 08/01/2012 06:08 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote at 22:01 (EDT) on Tuesday:

>> 4) Person(s) associated with GPL enforcement in Germany later raised
>> concerns about the absence of any automatic termination language.
> 
> I didn't know that.  Is there a record of this and their concerns?

The only recorded public record is in the GPLv3 Final Draft Rationale:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl3-final-rationale.pdf
(pdf, page 15, footnote 8). You can get some sense of when this change
was made by considering the date of the "Last Call Draft".

Incidentally I recently deleted this whole complicated automatic
termination, automatic reinstatement structure. European lawyers
comfortable with the ex-Harvey Birdman Rule are invited to explain why
it is more valuable than costly. In part the problem here is that
there is so little on the record -- just that terse footnote.

I'll also point out that this last-minute, nonpublicized change did
not result in greater acceptance of or advocacy for GPLv3 by the
persons who requested it. This is not in itself a good reason to get
rid of the last-minute change, but I'm not exactly shedding a tear in
doing so.

>> I just think it's way more complicated than a termination provision
>> needs to be.
> 
> Ok, pursuant to my Platonic ideal thread, please describe what you see
> when you fly above the the Land of True Forms as a the One True Copyleft
> Termination Provision.  If I tried to describe mine, I'd probably get
> close to GPLv3, but that may merely mean I have no imagination. :) 

Of all the provisions in a copyleft license a termination provision is
the one that would seem to be least suited to Platonism. Practical
considerations on the European side were what led to that last-minute
change noted above. Given all your experience in GPL enforcement on
the US side, would you *really* have come up with GPLv3 section 8?

- Richard


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