On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Shlomi Fish wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
> >
> > > On Saturday 01 June 2002 02:41, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 31 May 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
> > > > > job job, someone has to speak for those who cannt ('cause they are coding
> > > > > too much) He _is_ right. The day this will happen a big part of freedom
> > > > > will be ported to win32 platform.
> > >
> > > > It is legally possible to port GPLed software to Win32. In fact, this has
> > > > happened with Cygnus and Friends. This is in a similar spirit to the fact
> > > > that GPLed software can be run on proprietary UNIXes.
> > >
> > > i was joking. what i meant was that gpl software can be reproduced freely,
> > > while those packages (build open free sources) are not freely available. If
> > > indeed i missread th gpl, kde/gnomeduds can not give authorization to that
> > > distros to distribute their packages (something like Linus does not bother
> > > about binary-only kernel modules, even that it violates gpl).
> >
> > If the packages are distributed under the GPL (in some public way - say
> > on an FTP site), then they have no way of doing that. If the distributor
> > (say Caldera) respects the GPL (i.e: supplies the source and lets you
> > re-distribute the packages themselves) then there's nothing that can
> > legally been done about GPL software being a part of a proprietary
> > licensed software. The only think the GPL restricts is linking against
> > non-GPL compatible code.
> >
> > Linus Torvalds can allow proprietary modules for the Linux kernel, but
> > someone can fork the codebase, and then decide notto allow that.
> > Proprietary modules are allowed due to a general consensos among the
> > kernel developers.
>
> There is one difference between the two packages:
>
> KDE and gnome are distributed under the gnu (L?)GPL. Anybody can
> redistribute blablabla etc.
>
> The linux kernel is licensed under a license that is not exactly the GPL.
> It is the GPL with an extra clause that allows binary modules (to allow
> support of certain kinds of hardware, and with certain limitations, but
> this is really *not* the place to discuss them).
>
No, it's not - check the attached file which compares the license of the
Linux kernel to that of xmms. They are exactly the same. Check:
http://old.lwn.net/2001/0524/ (search for "The boundaries of the GPL")
for more information. What happened was that Linus interpreted the GPL in
a way that accepts binary modules. In an interview with him, RMS claimed
that it was not allowed according to the GPL, but since the codebase is
the kernel hackers property, then they can allow other things to be done
with it.
> TurboLinux, Caldera and SuSE (I don't know about Connectiva) redistribute
> GPLed software, BUT...
>
> They also bundle this software with their own installers (that probably do
> a pretty good job, otherwise people woldn't have bought them). The whole
> distribution is not published under the GPL or any similar license.
>
That's accepatble AFA a GPLed piece of work is concerned.
> So legally all they have to make sure is that all of their packages (or at
> least, the GPLed and LGPLed ones), including the source, are publicly
> available from their FTP site (they actually could get away with less,but
> there are practical reason for that)
>
> Don't like this? choose a different distro. Mandrake, Redhat and Debian,
> for instance, are distros that are completely free (installer and
> packageing under the GPL or something very similar).
>
Some of the software contained in those distributions is not free (e.g:
Netscape 4.72). But the distribution as a whole is.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
> --
> Tzafrir Cohen
> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir
>
>
>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: COPYING.diff.txt
--- /home/shlomi/Download/unpack/kernel/linux-2.5.19/COPYING Wed May 29 21:42:43
2002
+++ /usr/share/doc/xmms-1.2.7/COPYING Thu Mar 14 18:37:46 2002
@@ -1,24 +1,8 @@
-
- NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
- services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
- of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
- Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
- Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
- kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
-
- Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel
- is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not
- v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.
-
- Linus Torvalds
-
-----------------------------------------
-
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
+ 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
@@ -307,7 +291,7 @@
the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
- Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
+ Copyright (C) 19yy <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
@@ -329,7 +313,7 @@
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:
- Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
+ Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
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