On Wed, 23 Oct 2013, Les Mikesell wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 5:35 AM, Gordon Rowell <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Has anyone actually owned the community version of e-smith/SME?   When
> >> Mitel bought e-smith, I bet they were mainly buying the people, 
> >> intangibles,
> >> and marketing engine of e-smith.  Most all of the code was/is GPL.
> >
> > The GPL is a license under which code is released by the copyright holder.
> 
> The GPL  explicitly states that anyone can modify and redistribute
> copies as long as the license terms are maintained.  So it is odds
> with the normal concepts of ownership.

No, it is orthogonal to ownership. The GPL doesn't change ownership at 
all. It is a license, given to non-owners, which allows them to distribute 
the work (unmodified, or modified). The ownership stays with those who 
create the work (or pay to have the work created as work-for-hire).

The ownership (i.e. copyright) of SME server software is distributed among 
many parties. The majority of the SME server specific code is copyright 
Mitel; either produced by them, or purchased from e-smith, inc.

---
Charlie
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