On Tue, 2003-08-26 at 18:02, edA-qa mort-ora-y wrote:
The GPL is a contract. Copyright law prohibits individuals from making copies, the GPL effectively offers the right to make copies and more as a benefit of the contract. If the GPL is not a contract, then it is nothing, and you really can't do anything with GPL'd code.
That's not the standard description, and I don't think it's a point of view the FSF would subscribe to. The GNU GPL is a license, not a contract - it permits the free copying, modification and distribution under certain conditions. If I remember correctly, one of Larry Lessig's criticisms of the GPL is that it's not a contract: I'm sure the OSI have an alternative licence they dreamed up that did use contract law as it's lever (i.e., more like a EULA).
The GPL isn't a covenant between two individuals, therefore isn't a contract. I'm fairly sure that's the standard/intended thinking.
SCO did distribute GPL code, as part of their Linux system offerings. It is to be seen if *their* code was part of this offering at the time they offered it (which was still quite recently).
They distributed it, but did not release it. They did not licence it under the GPL, and the people who released it didn't have rights to licence it under the GPL (iff SCO are correct ;). It's a copyright license violation, I'm not sure that automatically means the GPL would apply though. As far as I'm aware, you cannot force people to relicence code on the basis of a violation - although I would guess it is a remedy available.
For example, if a company released a proprietary version of a piece of GPL'd software, I'm not sure you could force them to GPL that software: the law would allow you to stop them selling the product, and allow you to claim damages, but I don't think you can automatically gain access to the code.
Cheers,
Alex.