# Licensing fees with GPL?



## PMc (May 5, 2020)

Folks, 
I have a difficulty in understanding some licence requirements. For Berkeley it appears to be simple: you can do everything.
For GPL, as far as I understood, you are required to publish any further developments again under the original GPL license. 

But, as I thought, plainly _running_ the software, for whatever purpose, is no problem in both cases.

But looking closer, the GPL says it does not cover _running_ the software. So, if a developer puts their code under GPL and publish the source, they could say that you are free to copy, modify and distribute that code, but if you want to _run_ it, you need to pay a monthly fee and/or are restricted to certain use-cases or whatever.

How does that work?


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## obsigna (May 5, 2020)

PMc said:


> ... But looking closer, the GPL says it does not cover _running_ the software. ...



Since when does it say this?

At least some minutes ago, I read in the GPLv3 on GNU.org in the section *2. Basic Permissions.:*


> All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to *RUN* the unmodified Program. The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work. This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or other equivalent, as provided by copyright law.
> 
> You may make, *RUN* and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force. You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.


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## PMc (May 6, 2020)

obsigna said:


> Since when does it say this?



_"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope"_

That's what I read, in GPLv2. It then further says "_The act of running the Program is not restricted_", but that may not imply that it is then automatically allowed, as it is outside the scope.


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## obsigna (May 6, 2020)

I wish you all good luck of the world for finding a judge who refuses to take _"... is not restricted"_ as "_... is allowed"_


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## ralphbsz (May 6, 2020)

An interesting related question: What if someone releases software under the GPL, but explicitly restricts it to not be used for certain purposes (for example nuclear "stuff", deliberately being unclear here)? I know that this has been discussed in the 90s and early 2000s, and I don't remember what the outcome was.


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## PMc (May 6, 2020)

obsigna said:


> I wish you all good luck of the world for finding a judge who refuses to take _"... is not restricted"_ as "_... is allowed"_



Well, and if they find one, do You compensate me for the fine I might have to pay?



pyret said:


> Only an attorney who works in business law, technology law, intellectual property law, or other fields of law pertaining to licensing can provide a lawful answer.  Anyone else is just speculating.



Thats probably correct. And those are the most expensive ones.



> If this could cost you money from a wrong answer, then contact a lawyer.



Only people with money can ask a lawyer. 

As I mentioned in another thread, this forum does not provide blogspace for users, where I could post my practical findings, configs, bugfixes, etc. So I pursue the idea to maintain that stuff on a local webserver, and to do so I might need some pieces of software, which then are publicly visible. So, if the bottomline of GPL is that one cannot do such unless one is rich enough to support a lawyer, well, then that's the case.



ralphbsz said:


> An interesting related question: What if someone releases software under the GPL, but explicitly restricts it to not be used for certain purposes (for example nuclear "stuff", deliberately being unclear here)? I know that this has been discussed in the 90s and early 2000s, and I don't remember what the outcome was.



Oh, that's sad. That one is indeed related. Thank You for the hint, I might do a search in that context later.


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## ralphbsz (May 6, 2020)

PMc said:


> But looking closer, the GPL says it does not cover _running_ the software. So, if a developer puts their code under GPL and publish the source, they could say that you are free to copy, modify and distribute that code, but if you want to _run_ it, you need to pay a monthly fee and/or are restricted to certain use-cases or whatever.



Let's ignore the question that some versions of the GPL actually explicitly say that you can always run the software.

There are lots of other things that the GPL does not entitle you to. For example: If you buy software from IBM and buy a service contract, you can call 1-800-IBM-SERV, and they will cheerfully help you. That is true even if the software is partially or completely under GPL. If you stop paying for the annual service contract, and you try calling that number, they will (hopefully politely but a lot less cheerfully) tell you to branch to Fishkill (that is a small town in New York, and part of a bad joke about programs that crash). Just because the software is under GPL does not mean that you have a right to get support, or to get support for free, or to get precompiled binaries for free, or to run the software. It only means that the person who modifies or writes it (and holds the copyright) needs to make the source code available.

Now, I know of no single case where you need to pay to RUN GPL'ed software. Certainly, RedHat's whole business model is built around people having to pay to get (a) a convenient, precompiled, and easy to install version of the software, (b) get software where the components have been carefully vetted and aggregated into a coherent whole, (c) software that has been quality controlled and keeps getting fixed, in particular for specific hardwares and deployment scenarios, and (d) get support if it doesn't work. But you don't need to pay to run it. Matter-of-fact, the whole premise of CentOS: You get fundamentally the same software as RHEL, but without RedHat's copyrighted bits that are not under GPL, and without any paid support.

By the way, there is obviously lots of software that one needs to pay for. In many cases, the fee for the software itself is a small amount, and most of the money is for a service contract. There are even (these days rare) cases where software is distributed "for rent", with the fees proportional to how much you use it (this used to be common when licensing proportional to CPU power). There is even rare software that is closed source, but customers receive the source code once they pay for the license (and are obviously not allowed to re-distribute it). But I've never heard of someone selling the right to run software, in a case where the source code is available for free.

One big problem with this idea is that enforcement would be heinously difficult: How do you prevent people who have downloaded the source from compiling and running it clandestinely? Even if that were indeed illegal under a "pay to run" license, finding them would be darn near impossible. Another big problem would be that if anyone tried this, it would cause a massive shitstorm. Reddit and Twitter would be glowing red hot, and the seller's loss of reputation would commercially kill them (on the other hand, Reddit and Twitter glow red hot anytime Elon Musk makes more babies or does more drugs, so perhaps it wouldn't get noticed).

Now let's analyze the case where someone writes GPL'ed software, releases the source under the GPL (which clearly gives permission for other people to obtain the source and further modify it), but requires users to pay rent for using it. What prevents you from taking the source, changing one line (which you now have copyright on!), re-releasing your version, and making your version available for free (to yourself primarily)? The GPL may be viral and infectious, but only the GPL is; a modified version of the GPL (with a runtime payment requirement) would not be viral, since it states very clearly that the GPL itself (not a modified version!) attaches to any derivative work. So your new version is covered by the GPL only, not by the more restrictive license the people who wanted run-time royalties put on it.

All in all: while it's good to be paranoid (yes, only the paranoid survive ... even that is worth discussing), the probability of this scenario actually happening is either flat our zero or infinitesimally small.



> So, if the bottomline of GPL is that one cannot do such unless one is rich enough to support a lawyer, well, then that's the case.


In theory, you can always be sued for any reason (or non-reason), and you may have to spend a fortune to defend yourself. If one makes that form of paranoia the guiding principle of ones life, then all one can do is to curl up in the fetal position and stop moving.

In practice, think about why someone would sue you. If you have something valuable, to get it. Well, if you have something valuable, you are by construction rich, and can afford to spend money on "insurance", like putting it into a good safe, operating a burglar alarm, and getting good advice from good lawyers. Not an interesting scenario. Second, because you pissed someone off, and under normal ethical and psychological rules they are right and you are wrong. Well, stop doing that! And if you get bankrupted for doing something bad, I personally won't shed too many tears over that. Third, if you are too poor to hire lawyers, you are also too poor to get sued, because one can't get blood from a stone. Remember, your adversary also has to pay high legal bills, and if they are acting rationally, they won't spend lots of money o lawyers and courts, if there is little chance of getting it from you. So being poor makes you safe. Finally you can be sued, because someone hates you for no logical reason, and they are crazy and irrational. Yes, this does happen (the last time it happened to me, I gave my lawyer $3K, and they went away, this was part of a political campaign, and "crazy woman" took offense to the fact that I was using quotes from her own court cases to campaign against her). But in reality, the danger from that kind of thing is minimal: If you just walk up to the judge, and explain that you are broke, but you haven't done anything wrong, and that person is crazy and vindictive, most likely the judge will understand and just close the case.

So don't worry about this. Using GPLed software is generally accepted to be safe from a legal standpoint, as long as you don't do unethical things with it.


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## SirDice (May 6, 2020)

ralphbsz said:


> Now, I know of no single case where you need to pay to RUN GPL'ed software.


audio/lame springs to mind. Patents have since expired but it it was only "free" to use in a non-commercial way. 



ralphbsz said:


> Now let's analyze the case where someone writes GPL'ed software, releases the source under the GPL (which clearly gives permission for other people to obtain the source and further modify it), but requires users to pay rent for using it. What prevents you from taking the source, changing one line (which you now have copyright on!), re-releasing your version, and making your version available for free (to yourself primarily)?


Patents. 









						LAME - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## T-Daemon (May 6, 2020)

@PMc  why don’t you ask the publisher of the license, the Free Software Foundation. They have a contact address for exactly those questions you have.





__





						Contact us by email — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software
					





					www.fsf.org
				





> For any questions about the GNU GPL, LGPL, AGPL and Free Documentation Licenses:
> 
> licensing@fsf.org



I’m sure you will get from them a comprehensive response to your question(s). Here in the forum you get as feedback at most layman opinions and interpretations.


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## ralphbsz (May 6, 2020)

Lame is actually a good example. Except that one didn't have to pay to run the software, one had to pay to license the patent on the technology that underlies the software. The other interesting thing about the mp3 licenses was that license revenue was surprisingly modest; I've heard a figure of "several million euro per year", and most of the fee comes from consumer electronics manufacturers who sell MP3 players and content providers who encode into MP3 format. Given that the music business (both player hardware and distribution) is a multi-billion business, this is a surprisingly low number.


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## Jose (May 6, 2020)

SirDice said:


> Patents.


See also GIF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement


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## PMc (May 8, 2020)

Yeah, that is an answer like I had hoped for! I'm not really good at these business related things - but I tend to look closely into the details of what I am dealing with, and if it really works in a waterproof way - that's the reason why I find so many bugs (yesterday reported another for postgres).



ralphbsz said:


> There are lots of other things that the GPL does not entitle you to. For example: If you buy software from IBM and buy a service contract, you can call 1-800-IBM-SERV, and they will cheerfully help you. That is true even if the software is partially or completely under GPL. If you stop paying for the annual service contract, and you try calling that number, they will (hopefully politely but a lot less cheerfully) tell you to branch to Fishkill (that is a small town in New York, and part of a bad joke about programs that crash). Just because the software is under GPL does not mean that you have a right to get support, or to get support for free, or to get precompiled binaries for free, or to run the software. It only means that the person who modifies or writes it (and holds the copyright) needs to make the source code available.



It is obvious that nobody is willing to give away a service contract just for free. 
But there is another consequence of this: if you get yourself such an open-sourced software, and then fix the bugs in order to get it running, you may not be allowed to report these bugfixes (and so provide a benefit for the general public) unless you buy a service contract first.
(At IBM that's difficult enough even if you have a service contract - been there, the code was obviously copied from Berkeley, and fixed there, and it still took me 1 1/2 years to convince them that something is actually wrong.)



> Now, I know of no single case where you need to pay to RUN GPL'ed software. Certainly, RedHat's whole business model is built around people having to pay to get (a) a convenient, precompiled, and easy to install version of the software, (b) get software where the components have been carefully vetted and aggregated into a coherent whole,



That would translate to: systemd? 



> (c) software that has been quality controlled and keeps getting fixed, in particular for specific hardwares and deployment scenarios, and (d) get support if it doesn't work.



That's why I said I'm not good at these things: I never would have imagined such a business model could actually work. I mean, it would need a great deal of altruism to go to work and earn money, to then buy a service contract, so to be allowed to fix the bugs not only for oneself, but also for others.
But fact it does not only work - given the market-share it works really well compared to Berkeley - even while they seem to admit that we have the more stable OS. So maybe we should charge money for posting HOWTOs in the forum? 



> One big problem with this idea is that enforcement would be heinously difficult: How do you prevent people who have downloaded the source from compiling and running it clandestinely? Even if that were indeed illegal under a "pay to run" license, finding them would be darn near impossible.



Yes. That's why I'm starting to think about these things just before I might put something on a public webserver.



> Now let's analyze the case where someone writes GPL'ed software, releases the source under the GPL (which clearly gives permission for other people to obtain the source and further modify it), but requires users to pay rent for using it. What prevents you from taking the source, changing one line (which you now have copyright on!), re-releasing your version, and making your version available for free (to yourself primarily)?



Indeed, that one is interesting...
Actually I met that construct already, when, after sending in some bugfixes for a piece of software, I did appear in the list of recognized contributors. Then, one nice day (years later) I got a very creepy mail from the original author where he wanted me to sign a kind of contract, for whatever purpose. I didn't get the point in it (all I ever wanted was to get rid of my bugs), so I basically told him that I won't sign anything, and didn't bother to try and understand what the crap would be about.
But it figures in that light: that guy wanted to make the thing commercial, and tried to get me to abandon any rights I might have on these fixes.



> In practice, think about why someone would sue you.[...]
> Second, because you pissed someone off, and under normal ethical and psychological rules they are right and you are wrong. Well, stop doing that!



Now thats about to the point, and ethics doesn't seem to be quite up to it. 
Look at the following:

I obtain some GPL'd software, install it, fix a bunch of bugs in order to be able to run it. Then, I am not able to report these fixes back, because I don't have bought a service contract (and neither am I a customer of the github corporation). 
But, nevertheless, I should have the legal right to publish the fixes by some means of my choosing (because, according to GPL, I should even have the right to publish the whole software, including these fixes).

So, next step:  
We can easily imagine that the original author of the software (or their corporation and their lawyers) will not really be happy about scoring rather high on the "most-threatening-bug-of-today" radioshow.
But, also: in order to host that radioshow, I will need some CMS software or such - which again comes as GPL and with a pay-for-use offering.
Now, would it be too far fetched to imagine that beforementioned lawyers, having no means to legally stop my content on it's own, start looking for some other flaws in my setup where they might be able to shut me down - with this being the most cost-effective means to "resolve" their bugs?
(We have seen such things already - we have even seen people killed because they discovered relevant bugs.)

Now, ethically, what is good and what is bad here?



> Finally you can be sued, because someone hates you for no logical reason, and they are crazy and irrational. Yes, this does happen



Yeah. Psychos don't explode when exposed to sunlight. Sadly so.


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