I have translated the article in full - see
end of post (I think that I've done a far
better job than the Google translation - at
least it's readable now - any corrections
Stuff in {}'s is my (and others) additions
My apologies if I've paraphrased anybody
incorrectly, I will be glad to retract if
In this case, the idea is that the licence
under what country's law the GPL is governed.
That for the end user (as opposed to businesses),
the GPL doesn't apply because it's not written
The point here is that (under French law) the
author can change the terms of the licence
arbitarily. This is because any granting of
rights by an author must be clearly delimited
in terms of how long, where, to whom, dates and
times. In the absence of such limitations, the
original author has the right to change his
David Neary makes the point that the copyright
holder automatically retains the right to change
Scott replies it simply requires authorisation from
That's not my understanding. French law allows a
GPL type licence *_on condition_* that the
specific conditions of the granting of such
rights are clear - if they are not, there is
nothing to stop the original author taking
(correctly IMHO) as a weakness in the GPL).
Roughly, this clause means that the author(s)
is/are liable for any defects if the consumer
is not an IT engineer, so if Linux blows up
and data is lost, then the authors are liable.
Ciaran Johnson says that M$oft and others have
similar clauses - the point here is that they
are *_all_* invalid - just that this one
Niall O'Broinn makes the point that it is not
a sale, but rather a service/leasing arrangement
and that's why it doesn't come under this point.
I would suggest that the whole thrust of this
article has been to see software "sales" (even
if no money changes hands) as governed very
much by consumer law (in France anyway).
Rick Moen makes the point that it is not
a sale but rather a granting of rights which
explicitly specified - under French law.
The fact that two IP lawyers in France think that
the GPL is covered as a sale make me feel that
there is a de facto sale and a de facto contract.
Lawyer Cyril Rojinsky (duly appointed to
the court) and the jurist Vincent Grynbaum, both
specialised in the area of intellectual property
examine the "free" licences and in particular the
in the review "Proprietes intellectuelles
Their approach is interesting. The problem for
them is not to know whether freedom is valid under
French law (for them the question is a moot point)
but rather they asked themselves about the form
and the content of the text of free licences, and
in particular the GPL. The problem is not free
programmes, but rather the licence contracts of
The authors tell us that first of all, the
sufficient in the framework of international
contracts  (which is the case of licence
contracts for programmes developed and spread
via the Internet). The idea of copyright can
basically include differences from one country
to another. This is why, under international
contracts, it is necessary to specify to which
laws one is referring (French law, American &c.).
The authors only found three public licences
which were correctly formulated on this point:
QPL, IBM Public Licence and the Mozilla Public
Next, the authors remind us that (at least in
France), no clause in a contract may be contrary
to French law [2]. However, it turns out that a
licence such as the GPL is contrary to French law
in several respects. Firstly, it is written in
English and the FSF doesn't officially approve
of contract to be written in French, including for
businesses since the notion of "user" applies not
only to consumers, but also to businesses,
Contacted by the editors of LinuxFrench,
far as business is concerned, the "Toubon
it is in contradiction of European directives
on the subject, but whatever about that, the
problem is still valid for individuals, and
while waiting for it (French law) to change,
French companies have to deal with it, since
that according to French law, the author of
a free programme can, at any time, invoke
software by simply changing the licence.
property stipulates that the granting of
the condition that each of these granted
rights be the object of a distinct clause
in the granting act (i.e. the licence) and
delimited with respect to its scope and its
excersised)  and duration of any such grants.
[3] This is not the case of the GPL nor of
other free licences. Briefly, this means
that in France, or elsewhere if the author
is French, that which is under the GPL could
revert to proprietary from one day to the next.
The problem of the guarantee "hidden defects".
An other very serious flaw is that of the
guarantee. The GPL licences and others show
guarantee". You are going to immediately
reply that commercical programmes carry the
and this is correct. However, whatever is
written in a licence contract, one cannot
hidden defects", since it is imposed in the
Civil Code. This concept is poorly understood
(whoever it may be, individual or business,
since it specifies the Civil Code and not
defects, deliberate or made in good faith by
For example, if one buys a pair of socks
refunded nor exchanged", and on arriving
home you notice that one of the socks has
a hole in it, several scenarios are possible.
purchase: the flaw is deemed "obvious" and
packaged for example), and in this case,
exchange", you may invoke "hidden defect"
and have them changed or obtain a refund,
Personally, I have already invoked in shops
the "hidden defect" clause and it always
worked well (shopkeepers are always very
cooperative if you quote a couple of words
the possibility of discovering the defect
wouldn't have bought it at that price if
if you are able to show that the vendor had
knowledge of the defect (hidden), but didn't
inform you. In this case, not only does he
all products, including programmes. This
authorities (and the courts) surrounding
During this interview, we asked ourselves,
code under the GPL with proprietary code.
I need to link with a proprietary library
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