> Under no circumstances will a court demand specific performance of GPL obligations to release source code.
I wonder why not though. If that’s the clear terms of the license, and there’s some implied consent when using a library, and others knowingly used the library with the right terms, why can’t the courts find it fair?
Basically, Atari wanted to port some old Humongous Entertainment games to Wii, they hired a contractor, who hired a contractor, who downloaded SCUMMVM and ported it to the Wii. Of course, Nintendo's SDK terms specifically forbid source code disclosure, and they did not disclose source code of their port of this emulator.
So if a court specifically compelled performance of the GPL's license obligations, then they'd also be compelling Atari to violate their agreement with Nintendo. So does Nintendo now get to sue Atari for being sued by SCUMMVM's development team and losing? Or does the court get to override Nintendo's NDAs to satisfy the GPL? What if they chose the opposite: overriding the GPL to preserve Nintendo's NDAs? Neither of those outcomes really jive with the core idea of copyright, because they all rely on having one infringed party "step on" the other's ownership, with courts having to decide who wins and loses.
Presumably the judge wouldn't want either agreement to be violated, so would go with the third option, which hopefully satisfies both agreements at the same time; the Nintendo store gets to take down the ported old games from Atari. Then perhaps the contractor gets sued for not providing source code legally suitable for the Wii SDK.
I wonder why not though. If that’s the clear terms of the license, and there’s some implied consent when using a library, and others knowingly used the library with the right terms, why can’t the courts find it fair?