Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 02:53:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Mike Nowlin <mike@argos.org> To: cjclark@alum.mit.edu Cc: freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SecureBSD (Was: Re: Firewalls and the endless story!) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0007060219050.22306-100000@jason.argos.org> In-Reply-To: <20000705230111.D795@dialin-client.earthlink.net>
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> > If I read the code, and then inadvertently use some concepts in my own
> > code they can try and claim it as a derived work and do nasty things to
> > me.
>
> You can't copyright a concept. So I ask, did they get some patents? I
> did not see specific mention in the license of any new patents.
Gotta love the GPL... Take this section, for example:
2.b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole
or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof,
to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the
terms of this License.
With the previous sections in the license, it is saying that chunks of
code from a GPL'd program, even if they're thrown in a blender and
liquified first and then put into a non-GPL program, requires that the
resulting work has to be GPL'd...
Of course, what happens when I look at a GPL program, then a couple hours
later, I put the following line into a program I release non-GPL:
printf("%d %s\n", errno, strerror(errno)); ???????
Oops - that line was in the GPL program - I'm breaking the license terms
of gnu-quake53 with my latest network monitoring program...
This whole idea needs to be considered on a per-case basis. Sure, they
(the FSF) can claim "derived works", but at the same time, you can come
back and say "How can the FSF claim copyleft on code written from the
RFC's?" (or whatever...) As far as I'm concerned, the GPL is a good
concept (pun intended), but people get WAY too anal about the
implementation of it at times. I love my Linux box, but I still do a lot
of "sorry, no source code available" programming for clients on my other
machines.....
--mike
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