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

Bradley M. Kuhn bkuhn at ebb.org
Tue Jul 31 23:54:59 UTC 2012


Richard Fontana wrote at 22:08 (EDT) on Monday:
> Do you have views on what fixed period is 'default reasonable'? 60
> days? As I've said, I don't want a 30-day and 60-day dual scheme,
> since I can't see how the added complexity is justified. 

IIRC, Dave Turner influenced that based on his enforcement experience
working with me at FSF on GPL enforcement.  Even though no GPLv3
drafters (except Fontana) ever bothered to ask my opinion on any part of
GPLv3, I always rather liked GPLv3§8, notwithstanding the complexity.

Note that the "provisionally, then 60 days" thing ensures the copyright
holder can enforce effectively against the perennial violator who
self-corrects *only* when a user notices but falls out of compliance
again quickly.

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.

Anyway, as I rereview GPLv3§8, I'm again convinced all moving parts are
necessary.  I can take any given part and explain why it's good
enforcement policy (I've not covered it all above, but ask me about
specific clauses and I'll answer).


But, that all said, I've never actually enforced the GPLv3.  All my
enforcement has been GPLv2, and thus I've never enforced under any
termination clause other than "auto-termination on any infraction and
you'll just have to beg for your permissions back".  I've often wondered
if termination weren't automatic, violators would work harder to get
back into compliance before termination happened.  I wonder sometimes if
they feel they're screwed anyway right now, so they might as well just
sit around and wait for the lawsuit to come.

I've also wondered if different termination policies should exist for
different types of violations.  But that would just add even more
complexity, so I presume copyleft-next wouldn't want to go there.


Anyway, this is all just speculation.  I have no idea what copyleft
enforcement looks like if termination is anything except
"automatic&permanent".  I don't think such enforcement has ever been
done in the history of the planet, frankly [0].

Richard Fontana wrote at 22:32 (EDT) on Monday:
> Ah, the principle that "mere nonsubstantive differences in termination
> provisions cannot lead to GPL incompatibility" never got codified (and
> may never have been fully thought out anyway).

This may be a more complex topic for cross-copyleft and license
compatibility theory.  Considering termination clause compatibility
without a deep study of the complexities of the lex mercatoria of Free
Software license compatibility probably puts the
proverbial cart before the proverbial horse.


[0] Again, for purposes of reasonable discussion, I'm ignoring
    enforcement whose goal is to sell a proprietary license.  We could
    invite Mickos to the list to tell us what the best termination
    policy is for single-copyright-holder GPL-misrepresentation cash
    shake-downs, but I don't think that'll make a better copyleft-next.
-- 
   -- bkuhn


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