Missing GPL detail may make it harder to enforce

I would have to be one of those that feel that the GPL license can certainly be a difficult thing to enforce. But in reality, is this that big a problem at this point?

The GPL may be difficult to enforce due to a lack of clarity over who owns the copyright to the software, according to a legal expert on Monday.

Lucie Guibault, an assistant professor of intellectual-property law at the Institute for Information Law in Amsterdam, said at the Holland Open Software Conference in Amsterdam, that the GPL should clarify who is the author of the software to ensure that open source software distributed under this licence receives legal protection.

Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the author of the GPL, was unable to comment in time for this article.

The copyright of the actual text of the GPL is owned by the Free Software Foundation, but the author owns the copyright to the GPL-licensed software. Authors that wish to release their software under the GPL are advised to include a line in the source code stating “Copyright © [name of author]“. But Guibault told ZDNet UK that it may not be enough to have the copyright statement in the code. [Read the rest]