Re: Terms of use Mathworks file exchange

[Judd Storrs]

On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden> wrote:

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.

That's irrelevent--it only addresses content when *submitted* to File Exchange. The GPL does not require anyone to host derivative works. The new ToS doesn't say you cannot use content obtained from File Exchange to create derivative works that compete with MathWorks products. It also doesn't say that you cannot sell or market products or derivative works elsewhere. Just that you can't do that on File Exchange. It has nothing to do with the license of the code itself. What this says is that if you need to compete with MathWorks products or sell or market products, host your stuff elsewhere.
 

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.

If you're referring to the restrictions you quoted above, they are not part of the license and do not affect code downloaded from file exchange at all. Those only affect what can be *uploaded* to file exchange.

> The GPL's teeth relate pretty specifically to the ability to
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).

MathWorks isn't charging for access and I see no evidence that MathWorks intends or intended to require fees. That's pure speculation and fear-mongering on your part.
 

> 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.

I'll agree that what they're doing is allowed under the BSD-like license simply because they're not modifying any licenses.

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.

Obviously MathWorks doesn't view GPL as useful to MathWorks and their customers.


--judd