I’m aware I’d be restricted from future binary updates. But my point goes to what the legal definition of what a “restriction” is in this context. The language in this sentence to me is plain, “You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein.” RH is attempting to limit my behavior by imposing contractual penalties for exercising rights granted under the GPL. Those penalties being imposed are not just restricting access to future binary updates, but forfeiting all current granted privileges and monies already paid under contract, and the termination of that contract. I would consider that a “restriction”, but IANAL either.
I see how it could be interpreted as that now, but I still disagree. To say that restrictions also include the consequences of doing some thing (e.g. you receive no further binaries) implies to me that the definition would be completely up to the user. One might intentionally break the contract to obtain a one-time copy that they weren’t technically “restricted” from getting. This seems rife with ambiguouity, which from my understanding would not work well in court. In contrast, “ability to copy/distribute/modify this snapshot of code regardless of what happens afterwards” remains a guarantee.
It has been a day since I last replied, and I am still not a lawyer. I absolutely agree that input from the FSF or a GPL-specialized lawyer would be insightful.
I’m not sure you said here what you mean to? I certainly still have access to the binaries I already downloaded. After all, they’re still running on my box! And also under the RHEL contract (old or new), I’m still able to run those binaries indefinitely. But that means I’m also still entitled to the source from RH for those installed binaries since they were originally distributed and installed by RH under the terms of the GPL.
I thought you’d still have access to the source for the binaries on your box, just that you couldn’t ask for the source of newer binaries since they would have already stopped supplying those. I could also be misunderstanding how Red Hat’s systems work.
But out of all this, my biggest concern of all this by far is the can of worms RH is opening. What’s going to happen when other even less scrupulous companies attempt to run with this possible GPL loophole RH is trying to bust open?
Alex makes points I would make regarding this - I don’t see any loopholes that would violate the four freedoms. At no point would you be unable to copy, distribute, or modify code for the binaries that you have.
In the event that I’m wrong, surely the FSF would be able to handle this and find a solution if they consider it a problem; perhaps in the form of a GPLv4?
Thanks, I appreciate your insights. Was surprised that it’s not new from Red Hat.