On 03.09.2007, at 00:15, Jonathan Strine wrote:
Markus,
Thank you very much for the answers, but I am left with one more
question. Does the statement quoted below mean that as long as the
patch *and* the base port (that is the main program, dynamips) are
both GPL, then everything is OK? If I understand GPL correctly I
cannot redistribute a patched version of of a non-GPL program (even
if the patch is GPL) since that would "break" the license?
Am I correct in the above?
well, the deal is that macports will only distribute the patch and
the user will create the patched version on his machine only - so for
macports everything should be just fine.
The thing with GPLed code is, that it is viral, so everything you
link against it (or mix with it) will get GPLed code, too. I'm not
quite sure what if you do not own the original source (e.g. it is BSD
licensed), but I assume that everyone will be happy as long as the
viral effect of the GPL is kept and you distribute the source code
along a binary.
Long story short: MacPorts only makes the patch available and not the
patched software, so there is no problem for us (as long we don't
distribute packages). For the rest, a lawyer should be contacted or
even better: Someone should ask the author of the patch why he/she is
not playing nice and not using the license of the original code.
-Markus
---
Markus W. Weissmann
http://www.mweissmann.de/
_______________________________________________
macports-dev mailing list
macports-dev@lists.macosforge.org
http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macports-dev
