Comments on: Microsoft Evangelist: GPL strips consumer of all their rights

By: SubSonica

SubSonica — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:46:06 +0000

I think the true sentence is the reverse:

“GPL: Microsoft evangelists strips consumers of all their rights.”

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:19:02 +0000

Saul,

Well put!

I fully expect[1] a brillant and logical detailed clarification from Mr. Holmes coming shortly forthwith.

[1] By “fully expect” I mean “would be shocked down to my very toenails”

By: Roy Bixler

Roy Bixler — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:01:04 +0000

That’s a fairly unusual and confusing definition of “consumer”, because it misleads one into believing that he claims the GPL somehow conflicts with consumer protection laws. He is really complaining that the GPL does not grant the ability of code users to take away freedoms from further would-be code users. Quelle surprise …

By: saulgoode

saulgoode — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:36:47 +0000

The author of that weblog amended his statement in a subsequent comment with:

Should have been clearer – Consumer of the code. In other words, the business or individual who leverages the code.

Of course, even this is entirely wrong. The GPL does not take away from such a “consumer of the code” any rights to copying and distributing because the “consumer” doesn’t have those rights to begin with. Copyright law is what “strips” those rights away from the consumer — the GPL serves to grant them back (as long as the terms and conditions of the license are met).

By: Roy Bixler

Roy Bixler — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:07:52 +0000

Ha, ha … I like that last line, Jason. The typical Microsoft EULA doesn’t even grant the user freedom number 0, the right to use the software for any purpose, let alone the other freedoms which the GPL gives. Microsoft’s typical angle is that users simply don’t care about the source code because they don’t have the ability or desire to change the software they run. In that use case, the GPL is exactly neutral whereas the typical Microsoft EULA is, er, shall we say, less than neutral. Unless there is something that I’ve missed, I think we can write off the Holmes blog post as good old fashioned FUD.