Re: Terms of use Mathworks file exchange

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 7 May 2012 15:14, Judd Storrs <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden>
> wrote:
>>
>> That's selective quoting. There are other terms that we have quoted
>> that are additional restrictions, and they do have a choice in the
>> matter, because the BSD-style license grants them that choice. The
>> GPL's liberty-or-death clause (paraphrased: if you can't distribute it
>> under the terms of the GPL, you can't distribute it at all) would
>> forbid them from adding the further restrictions that they added.
>
>
> The GPL isn't available there because MathWorks doesn't want it there, not
> because the GPL would be incompatible with the new ToS.

But the GPL *is* incompatible with their terms of service. This
clause, from GPLv3:

    You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly
    provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or
    modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights
    under this License (including any patent licenses granted under
    the third paragraph of section 11).

contradicts these additional restrictions from the ToS:

  iii. Content that you submit must not directly compete with products
    offered by MathWorks. Content submitted to File Exchange may only
    be used with MathWorks products.

  iv. Content that you submit must be offered free of charge. You may
    not use the Site to sell or market your products or services to
    others.

However, GPLv3 also has a clause that if you receive a work with
additional restrictions, you may remove those restrictions. It's not
clear to me what the exact interplay is between all these clauses, but
the point is, the GPL has clauses that go against what they're doing,
so obviously they forbid the GPL for this exact reason.

> Especially since the ToS explicitly states that the original
> license of the files is preserved.

This is part of what it says. *Then* it adds additional restrictions.
Don't quote selectively. Read the whole thing.

> Distributing source isn't even remotely similar to distributing
> binaries.

It's somewhat similar, and somewhat different.

> The GPL's teeth relate pretty specifically to the ability to
> distribute precompiled binaries.

No, the GPL also has a lot clauses about how source should be
distributed. For example, in GPLv2, you may not charge more money for
the source than what you charged for the binary ("equivalent access"
to the source is the language it uses).

> Also, you continue to misunderstand the BSD license. Unless
> MathWorks has some control of the copyright (via authorship,
> assignment or creation of a derivative work), it's only wiggle room
> is to distribute binaries without providing source.

No, the BSD-like license explicitly allows "redistribution and use in
source and binary forms, with or without modification" with some
fairly mild additional clauses. In particular, unlike the GPL, it
doesn't forbid adding additional restrictions, so what the Mathworks
is doing *is* allowed under the BSD-like license.

The Mathworks isn't purging the GPL out of the goodness of their
hearts. Obviously they felt threatened by it, and they responded to
that threat by adding additional legal restrictions. To me, if someone
feels threated by the GPL, then I question what restrictions they want
to add and why.

- Jordi G. H.