[tlug] GPL argument: Stephen ?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@??>]

Jean-Christophe Helary writes:

 > I am not sure I fully understood Stephen's GPL argument and, even if  
 > it may be OT here, I'd appreciate a "briefing", since I've started to  
 > read about IP recently and may be more able to understand the  
 > subtleties of the argument.

Which one?  There have been about a half dozen in the last 6 months.

If you're interested in GPLv2, I strongly recommend Larry Rosen's book
on Open Source Licensing.  There's a similarly-named book published by
O'Reilly, but it's not as good (it's not bad, either).  He has a
couple of chapters on issues with copyleft, the GPL in particular, and
the FSF's interpretation of the GPL.  Larry's an open source guy (not
a free software fanatic) and openly advocates software patents, so you
may find a lot of his conclusions not to your taste.  (The book does
not contain that much advocacy, though.)  Still Larry's a very good
lawyer and a good writer, so you'll at least understand the arguments
well.

If you want to know about GPLv3, really the main source is
gplv3.fsf.org.  My understanding from Larry and a couple other lawyers
interested in the issues is that they prefer to work within the
process (which is an excellent process).  So I haven't had much luck
finding serious (== constructive) criticism outside of the FSF site.