On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 9:04 PM, Alex Smith <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
> 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 > That pretty much makes sense. It would be nice to see someone else make an Oxyd clone for the iPhone, even if it doesn't use the Enigma source code.
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