Abusing the GPL?

Anonymous with good reason, a reader would like to bring this important question to your collective attention: "Our (technically savvy) lawyer has advised my company that 'incidental resources' do not a work derive. For example: If I have a student's version of a development environment whose license does not allow me to distribute code compiled with it for commercial use, I am legally allowed to use the environment to create my ANSI C++ code, which, when I compile it with GCC, I am free to use to whatever commercial end I like. This seems fairly intuitive. (After all, you could have written the same thing in a text editor, and the debugging, etc, that you need the IDE for doesn't actually 'show up' in the final code). Here's the kicker: My company wants to translate this to an abuse of the GPL and has been advised 'full speed ahead!'"

"How, you may ask?

Integrate the highly useful GPL code we're eyeing into our only slightly more complex (but much more lucrative) project, thereby saving us at least 30% of the coding involved. The company then go all the way to production with it, but instead of finally compiling the actual project for distribution, they instead compile a bunch of incomprehensible gobbledygook that just happens to compile to the same bytecode. You know the game: globally replace every function name, variable name, and so on from our code with nonsensical names (or random characters), remove all of the comments, and any other form of obfuscation they can introduce. They will then GPL the obfuscated gobbledygook, which isn't much more useful to anyone than reverse-engineered bytecode would be (it is a complex project). 'Voila!' All the benefits of a huge GPL project and countless thousands of volunteer hours and unreadable, incomprehensible source tree.

For the record: I do not think this is right yet, I have not been able to find any precedent for why the GPL should protect against this kind of abuse.

I'm not trying to snitch on my company -- or lose my job, which is why I am posting anonymously -- but hopefully some lawyers out there could point out some iron-clad legal reason preventing this sort of thing. I've read the GPL through at least a dozen times since yesterday, and so far it looks like our lawyer is right. I have not found any relevant linkage either, as I have mentioned. Links to extended legal analyses of the GPL from a technical standpoint (if any exist) would be the most helpful. All help is appreciated."

Do it man.

[sinserve]

Do the fucking thing your boss says, as long as you
are not in power, follow orders.

But as soon as you follow the wrong orders, and
break the law, you are instantly in power.

Do your job, get paid, and fucking report them if
they ever fire you.

It is a win-win situation for you.

--

Re:Source code = preferred form for modification

[kubrick]

The GPL explicitly defines source code as the preferred form of a program for modifying it.

To find out whether the gobbletygook you distribute is source code or not is simple: if you normally add features to the program by editing the gobbletygook, it's source.

Maybe if that gobbledegook were legalese?

Herewith, the party of the first part, being the variable heretofore known as 'x', and the party of the second part, being the value henceforth known as '1', do legally contract a valid and binding agreement to...

Etc.

At least then it would be the preferred form for someone -- the lawyers :)

(NB: Zealots, I'm only kidding. I do think this is an ethically dubious act, and possibly an illegal one too. I guess it depends on whether this company thinks that their lawyer(s) are better than some of the ones that could get brought to bear against them...)

CONGRATULATIONS! ...

[MartinG]

.. on being the one millionth poster to point out the "preferred form" clause! You have won a "Score -1 redundant" moderation. Your prize will be delivered shortly.

:)

Re:Why did it take so many posts?

[asobala]

I would be highly suspicious that your lawyer is insufficiently anal when reading contracts if they missed this. Am Not A Lawyer? :-P

Parses, but no useful information

[Bruce Perens]

It might be gramatical, but it's not germane. I suspect it was intended to obfuscate.

So many posts. So little time.

[fm6]

Why did it take so many posts for someone to point this out?

Silly question. As with any online discussion of a controversial matter, there are certain accepted protocols. Before you begin the serious part of the conversation, you must first rant about the evils of the Legal Profession, Big Corporations, Current Concepts of Intellectual Property, Where It all Went Wrong, etc. If at all possible, you must make yet another attempt to resolve the Capitalism-versus-Socialism issue. Only then can you actually address the question at hand.

Do people not read the GPL?

What kind of pinko PC new-age bullshit is this? This is America, buddy. I'm entitled to my opinion, which means I'm entitled to have my opinion accepted. I don't have to waste time going around "verifying facts" and "considering the reliability of my sources". You start going around making up all kinds of rules like that, before you know, I have to get a license to open my mouth!

I would be highly suspicious that your lawyer is insufficiently anal when reading contracts if they missed this.

Well, maybe he's incompetant. Maybe he just wants to score points. Maybe he's got some weird legal theory that makes sense to him. Maybe there's some obscure rule or precedent that makes the clause in question moot. Maybe...

Eh. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that he's got a legal theory as to how the GPL can be sidestepped. It might not hold up in court. But that doesn't matter until it gets to court. There's no Bad Law Fairy who's gonna come out of the sky and put things right. Somebody is going to have to mount a legal challenge to this abuse. That somebody has to have legal standing in the case and deep pockets. Now, don't all raise your hands at once!

What a day to be without moderator points...

OK, I just ran out of irony. Look, the mod system worked -- maybe not as fast as you liked, but it did. Don't feel bad because you didn't get to put on your Arnold mask and mod all the lamers down. It's just a damned filtering tool, not a way to Rebalance Universal Morality.

No easy answer...

[SPYvSPY]

There might be a more airtight alternative public license. I don't know. One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one.

MS-linux with obstificated source

[Elivs]

imagine in MS decided to release a version (for cost) of debian with MS-office, but all the source for the debian was obstificated. They could argue that for them the preferred form of source is the obstificated code.

Judge: "Do your programmers make their modification to this gooble-de-gook?"

MS-lawyer: "Yes"

Judge: (looking incredulous) "How?

MS-lawyer: "For every programmer actively working to improove our source, we have ten others trying to work out what we did last week."

Judge: "So your programmers can't work out what other programmers working on the same code are doing?"

MS-lawyer: "That right!! No programmer can even work out what program they are working on. Its our preferred method of development"


Maybe they are doing this already...
Elivs