Raul Miller writes: > On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 03:19:41PM +0200, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote: > > Note: source is GPL, but for windoze binaries it is *required* > > a registration. > > After looking at this for a bit, and thinking about it, it looks like > the shareware is a distribution charge, which is allowed under the GPL.
It is not a distribution charge; it is a charge on continued use, which is not allowed under the GPL. The shareware version does not provide source code for things like the key checker (required by the GPL), does not provide a script or directions for linking against a different version of gtk+ (required by the LGPL), and apparently omits copyright notices (required by the GPL, LGPL and the OpenSSL libraries used). Unless the license texts are embedded in a prominent part of the "shareware" xchat.exe executable, they are not included in the shareware version, so users do not know what the licenses really are. > Note that this has some implications about the rights of users of xchat, > whether or not they register their shareware. [Users who wish to > redistribute are allowed to, as long as they satsify GPL's requirements.] Users cannot satisfy the GPL's requirements for redistribution, since they do not have the source code to rebuild the key-checking code, and they do not have scripts or directions to build minigtk.dll. Michael Poole
