On Tue, 2009-10-06 at 21:37 +0200, Dániel Borbély wrote: > that does not violate Enigma's GPL. It violates Oxyd rights... or not: > See the Esprit and Oxyd levels and packs in Enigma. However (mentioned > on mag-heut) it is currently impossible to reproduce some level > features.
You can't legally make a non-GPL derivative of GPL source code without permission from all its copyright holders (for Enigma, there are a lot, and many of them are unlikely to consent to a change of licence in any case); the reason for this is that the GPL is the only licence that lets you make a modified copy of Enigma's source at all, and it doesn't permit that particular operation. The issue with putting Enigma on the iPhone is that I have heard (although do not know this for a fact) that giving the source for applications violates Apple's terms; apparently using Apple's SDK for the iPhone requires you to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevents you from giving the application's source out. As a result, there'd be no way that anyone could simultaneously get a licence from Apple to develop a version of Enigma for the iPhone, and from the Enigma developers to port it to the iPhone; any course of action would break one agreement or the other. See <http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/131752> for a more in-depth explanation of this. Another potential problem would be that as a typical (unmodified) iPhone will only run code signed by Apple, it would be impossible to legally distribute GPLv3 code onto the iPhone (section 6 of version 3 of the GPL implies, among other things, that no licence is given to distribute code in such a way that the person distributing could create a modified copy that could be installed, but the person receiving it couldn't; therefore, Apple couldn't distribute GPLv3 code that they didn't own copyright for for the iPhone without also publishing the private key they use to sign software, which would be massively unlikely). Enigma is licenced under version 2 of the GPL or above; version 2 doesn't have this protection; however, with a project with a licence like that, there's always a risk that it will choose to move to version 3 (which is possible, apart from some GPLv2-only levels), leaving a possible iPhone port in the lurch even if you did manage to develop it somehow! Summary: Enigma cannot legally be ported to the iPhone unless either every Enigma developer, or Apple, have a serious change in their licensing policies, as the licences just don't match. Note: I am not a lawyer; I do study copyright law (and the GPL in particular) for a hobby, but I may of course be completely mistaken in everything said here. -- ais523 _______________________________________________ Enigma-devel mailing list Enigma-devel@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/enigma-devel
