

Ask HN: Copyright lawyer advice needed: Is this .jar file under the GPL? - lzmecz

I need a lawyer who can answer whether the following is true: If the author uploads a .jar file with .class files in it to a GPL v2 Sourceforge project&#x27;s file section, then by this act the .jar file and its contents get released under the GPL v2 under USA law, even if the author claims that this software was never intended to be and thus it never became GPLed. I&#x27;m ready to give more details during a 1-hour consultation session over chat or voice call. My budget for this consultation is 400 USD. Your private, non-lawyer opinions are also welcome, but to get my problem solved, I need professional advice with a high confidence (preferably based on past lawsuits) that the court would rule the same way.
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dalke
The Free Software Foundation offers legal consulting services. Here's part of
email I got from them in 2007:

> The FSF has offered Free Software licensing support for many years, and has
> a recognised engineering and legal expertise in this area. As demand and
> expectation of our service has grown, we have required additional funds to
> support our work. To this end we now offer our services by paid consultation
> to non-free software developers.

> To answer your question as outlined, we will require 30 minutes of
> consultation time, at a cost of $150.

That price may have gone up since 2007, but it likely in the same price range
as you are looking for.

So my suggestion to you is to contact licensing@fsf.org with the above
message.

~~~
lzmecz
I've received an autoreply in a minute, but no human from FSF has answered my
e-mail to licensing@fsf.org in the last 10 days. I'll send an update here as
soon as they answer.

~~~
dalke
Well that sucks.

Some alternative ideas, though these are likely even less helpful than my
previous one, is to contact Bradley M. Kuhn (he is on the FSF's board of
directors) via one of the methods at
[http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/contact/contact-
bkuhn.html](http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/contact/contact-bkuhn.html) and as a long
shot, contact the Software Freedom Law Center. (I say "long shot" since I
think they only do work for not-for-profit clients.)

~~~
lzmecz
Thanks for the tips. I'm a non-profit client.

~~~
belorn
I would contact the software freedom law center at
([http://www.softwarefreedom.org/about/contact/](http://www.softwarefreedom.org/about/contact/)).
Providing pro-bono legal services to developers of Free, Libre, and Open
Source Software is their purpose, so you should get a quick answer from them.
They also got an irc channel for non-legal questions if you just want to get
in contact with them.

