Just some observations about my interpretation of the GPL. Perhaps they won't be terribly popular, but hopefully it'll make a few people *think*.
IANAL, I am a software engineer. I am also not an OSS zealot. My philosophy tends more towards Cluetrain than anything else. On Fri, 12 Jul 2002, guitarlynn wrote: > Personally, I would be against something similar to a company taking a > LEAF CD/IDE release, putting a closed-source web-configuration > application on it, and selling it.... unless a large amount of the core > distribution was also re-written. I am against adding one or > two packages to a stock GPL'ed release and selling it as opposed > to simply selling the package that they are offering. The current > development of anti-virus/email-scanning for commercial use > is an example of something that is fine with me.... they are selling > their own code/package. Then perhaps the license you are desiring is not the GPL. The GPL _does_ allow binaries to be sold[1] just as long as the distributor also provides machine readable source[2] in a similar fashion -- downloadable if the binary was available online, on physical media if the binary was distributed on physical media, etc. [There is no requirement for an exact parallel, just similarity and machine readable]. The reason that most GPL'd software is free-as-in-beer is that once it's in the wild, who's going to pay for it? And if there's a value proposition without need for charging for the binary or source in the first place, why do it? IMHO, you cannot restrict anybody from taking your GPL'd package and codistributing it with a closed source binary. There is nothing in the GPL that prevents your scenario as long as they honor the rules of the GPL, ie. providing source for all the open source bits that make up the distribution. Worse, if it is not apparent how to get that source from you, they can cause a lot of trouble. Wording your license to prevent this case is itself a violation of the GPL. One more point to ponder. What if the whizzy closed source "application" were a piece of hardware? Would you object to Fred's Router Appliances, Inc. shipping a "free" copy of LEAF, including source and development environment with every box? The GPL is, at best, an insurance policy. Insurance that your code will live as long it's useful enough to somebody willing to maintain it. Perhaps you'd prefer "Shared Source"? ... Didn't think so. John [1] Up to the cost of distribution. [2] Pointing requestors to the upstream source is NOT good enough. The distributor is required to provide the sources THEY use. ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Leaf-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-devel
