On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 22:57 +0200, Zoa wrote: > Yes, if they keep that inside the company yes, as soon as it leaves the > company (customers for example) it changes the situation
I really get off JIAX here, and more into the base laws, from a US perspective. Because the GPL relies on a certain base of law to be effectual it may or may not be the same in all jurisdictions. As a result YMMV. But only to those customers, they have no obligation to release. There are also ways of using gpl stuff and mixing it with gpl incompatible stuff such that it does not violate the license, even if distributed. This is something that new gpl variant tries to address. If you connect over a socket then the gpl does not infect the program that is at the other end of that socket. This kinda has to be since you cant enforce gpl licensing over sockets, think of a web browser/server situation. You could provide enough logic in the gpl side to just talk to the non gpl stuff. Then if it does get distributed it doesnt matter because the important stuff is sequestered. Now in all fairness, this isnt just a deceitful trick, freeswitch.org uses this to talk to spandsp (GPL only). Steve fully understands the limits and benefits of the gpl so he doesnt argue that its unfair, and is fully aware that we do this and has contributed verbally (although does not contribute code) to the project. This enables freeswitch (MPL 1.1) to use spandsp (GPL) and everyone is happy. There are those that claim that you cannot mix gpl *compatible* software with their gpl product, and will argue tooth and nail that a bsd module for example cannot be mixed, when it would only matter at distribution time. There are also other factors, the GPLs parasitic license infection (it propagates like a virus why not refer to it like one?) only applies if there is a combined work distributed (at which point it takes over entirely and completely while the works are distributed together, once separated or if never distributed it has no effect. It also only works on copyrighted works, and the 'derived' part of it is based in copyright law. The GPL can only protect that which is copyrightable, so lets look at what that means as well http://www.uspto.gov/go/com/doc/ipnii/ipnii.doc >From this provision, the courts have derived three basic requirements for copyright protection -- originality, creativity and fixation.50 The requirements of originality and creativity are derived from the statutory qualification that copyright protection extends only to "original works of authorship."51 To be original, a work merely must be one of independent creation -- i.e., not copied from another. There is no requirement that the work be novel (as in patent law), unique or ingenious. To be creative, there must only be a modicum of creativity. The level required is exceedingly low; "even a slight amount will suffice."52 According to http://www.uspto.gov/smallbusiness/copyrights/faq.html#5 copyright isnt international, and the gpl is just a use license that says that you can use the copyrighted work, however if the copyright is invalid then there is a potential argument that the license is not valid, without a valid copyright the person is free to do with it how they see fit. Although resending that new work back to its place or origin (or somewhere that has a treaty) may result in potential problems, although in the case of open source software its hard to show a loss by someone else using it in this way, which in America at least makes it harder to sue. Now if you dual license you can easily show a loss. I also got bored writing this, and decided that I would search no further for a cite, but I do know that there are 4 criteria used in the US to classify something as derived, one of them is the substantial amount of included original copyrighted work. This is something the FSF does not want you to know about. They want you to think that if you include anything, say 1 line of code, then the entire program becomes GPLed (that is in their FAQ) but the USPTO claims that courts in the US have ruled differently. This would include the quantity of code compared to say a library (especially if the lib is stripped down to be only what you need, making it proportionally smaller) as well as include files. If its not a substantial amount then it doesnt matter, and generally in any non-trivial program, including a header file would not be enough, again YMMV. This is totally contrary to what the FSF claims but it is what the courts claim, and when an action happens, it may happen in teh court of the FSF (where zealots DDoS your site for example, which has happened in the past) as well as the court of law. Another of the 4 is the commercial use of the work, this is generally what gives school teachers the ability to xerox copyrighted passages of books for use in the classroom. While its not an absolute exception, it does generally give a lot more liberty. -- Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com Bret McDanel Belfast +44 28 9099 6461 US +1 516 687 5200 http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you! _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
