GPL in Europe

“The GPLâ??s major problem is that the right of communication to the public is not provided explicitly amongst the granted rights, and that a clause limits furthermore the granted rights to what is explicitly provided by the license. Moreover, the GPL is known for being the most viral license ever, whereas massive spreading through dynamic linkage is not the aim of the European Commission.”

This is a quote from a Study into Open Source Licensing of software developed by The European Commission entitled “Report on Open Source Licensing of software developed by The European Commission (applied to the CIRCA solution) 16th December, 2004” by Séverine Dusollier, Philippe Laurent & Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz.
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/2623/5585#eupl

Right to communication
The major problem with the GPL is that the right to communication to the public is not explicitly provided in the license?

“The right to communication to the public”? I am unsure which right the authors are referring to. However the GPL is explicit in that once software is licensed under the GPL the source code must be available and the software itself can be used for any purpose.

Most viral
“Moreover, the GPL is known for being the most viral license ever, whereas massive spreading through dynamic linkage is not the aim of the European Commission.” – Once again I am unsure what the authors are concerned about. The point of article 2 (the viral or vaccination effect) is not “massive spreading through dynamic linkage” (which sounds terrifying even if I dont know what it means). The viral effect entails that you cannot take code which has been released under the GPL (made free for all) and use it in part in code which you do not intend to make freely available for all. Simple – but not scary.

We need the GPL

During his keynote speech at FISL (Fórum Internacional de Software Livre) in Brazil, Eric Raymond said, “We don’t need the GPL anymore. It’s based on the belief that open source software is weak and needs to be protected. Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn’t make lots of people nervous about adopting it.” (Quote found here)

The purpose of ther GPL is not to make people accept open source software – the GPL is about Free Software. Open Source software is in a legally and morally weaker position than Free Software. In addition to this the GPL contains within it a fundamental social goal which Open Source does not.

Open source is a method of production – Free Software is creating a social infrastructure which is not the property of anyone and therefore can be used freely by those who need or want it.

GPL Win in Michigan

The case involved software written in part by Drew Technologies, Inc., to which others contributed, in reliance upon the GPL. DrewTech, an engineering firm in Michigan, develops custom vehicle communications solutions for the automobile industry. DrewTech released the software at issue on SourceForge, under the GNU General Public License (“GPL”).

GROKLAW