Date: 05 Jan 1999 15:30:51 +0200 From: Ville-Pertti Keinonen <will@iki.fi> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL (was: HEADS UP: Postfix is coming. new uid, gid required.) Message-ID: <8690fhc0dw.fsf@not.oeno.com> In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey's message of "1 Jan 1999 04:49:38 %2B0200" References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9812312056180.3621-100000@janus.syracuse.net> <199901010217.SAA20264@hub.freebsd.org> <19990101125656.C41841@freebie.lemis.com.newsgate.clinet.fi>
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Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> writes: > area. The way I see it, the decision is whether the GPL'd part of the > software is indivisible from the rest. Otherwise you take FreeBSD, If the GPL'd parts of the FreeBSD base system would be considered indivisible from FreeBSD, FreeBSD would have to be entirely GPL'd (not just distributed for free). Which is not possible, because parts of FreeBSD have conflicting license terms (source code under a BSD license cannot be part of a GPL'd product by adding the restrictions of the GPL, unless it's a variant of the BSD license with the advertising clause omitted). So clearly the *BSD projects have decided beforehand that such a broad interpretation is not valid, otherwise they wouldn't be able to act legally. Still, I think the current policy (preference of less restrictive free software licenses over the GPL) is good. > including exim, make modifications and sell the result, explicitly > excluding exim from the part of the software which has been bought > (``also includes--*free*--exim and all those GNU packages you know and > love''). It's not selling that the GPL prohibits, but withholding source code and placing additional restrictions on distribution. As long as the package you sell includes the source code to any GPL'd software included or you offer to provide source code on request, you're fine. Distributing the sources along with the binaries is naturally the easiest, the three year obligation to provide the source code to anyone who wants it is annoying. (It can even be reason enough not to use the GPL voluntarily, I certainly don't want to make promises that I might not be able to keep. I also do not want to place additional restrictions on my freedom to e.g. decide to never touch a computer again in my life -- not that I would be free to do that in the near future, anyhow, but in principle.) > Last September, Stallman was bitching about people like Caldera who > sell their product and put GNU utilities on the same CD-ROM. But I Which should have absolutely nothing to do with the GPL, unless there are other factors involved. This is explicitly stated in the GPL. RMS's critique is often moral rather than legal. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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