Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Bernd Petrovitsch
2007-06-14T10:10:53Z

On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 05:05 -0400, Daniel Hazelton wrote:
> On Thursday 14 June 2007 04:37:55 Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
[...]
> > > > covered by the GPL.
> > >
> > > Indeed, TiVO has this legal right. But then they must not use
> >
> > Do they? At least in .at, it is usually impossible to (legally) limit
> > the rights of the *owner* a (tangible) thing (and if I bought it, I *am*
> > the owner and no one else) - even if you put it in the sales contract
> > since this is discussion about/within sales law.
> >
> > One usual example is "you buy a car and neither the car producer nor the
> > (re)seller can restrict the brands of the tires you may use or the brand
> > of the fuel etc.".
>
> No argument there. However, that is not to say that "you bought it, now you're
> free to do with it whatever you please" is always what the law says (at least
> in the US)

Of course not (and I neither stated nor implied it) - there are lots of
laws which forbid killing other people etc.
But the seller of the car is not in the position to forbid anything
(which is not forbidden by the law), e.g. ha cannot forbid to replace
the motor or similar thing. I may loose guarantee or have to cope with
other consequences (if it is done badly), but that is my problem and
decision.

> In the TiVO case there may be restrictions placed on the manufacturer for
> legal reasons or contractual reasons. Seeing as I'm not privy to the

Frankly, I really don't care that much about legal and contractual
reasons of the *manufacturer* (starting from waste disposal regulations
up to tax regulations, etc.) and they are irrelevant to me anyways.
At most I can have
*) legal restrictions (obviously coming from the law) on the *usage* of
the device or
*) from a contract (obviously with the seller of the device since there
is no other involved - and this contract may contain inapplicable
clauses - e.g. sth. like "you are not allowed hear German music with
this device").
And I don't have a contract with the manufacturer so there can't be any
limitation by the manufacturer.

> contracts between TiVO and the various production and broadcasting companies
> I can't comment on what contracts they have. As to the legal side there are

And they are pretty irrelevant anyways to everyone else.

> restrictions in copyright law.

ACK. But copyright law (at least the equivalent in .at and very
probably .de - and IMHO it is probably everywhere else similar simply
because copyright/authors rights laws was actually designed and written
to deal with music, literature, etc. which are intangible by nature)
simply doesn't apply to hardware as such (pun intended;-).

Bernd
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