David Megginson wrote: > > > My understanding of the *gpl is "keep the copyright as a legal > > instrument to enforce the donation in court against those who > > try to deny the public its donated good", which _makes_ it > > legally enforceable. I don't see "pd" as being enforceable. > > Not quite -- the GPL is designed to force people to make their > modifications or improvements publicly available, something that does > not concern me so much.
The GPL doesn't force the modifications to be given back to the community. It only forces that the source code for the distribution of the software (modified or unmodified doesn't matter) must be aviable for reasonalbe costs. So if my company gets an GPLed software and modifies it and uses it only internally no code has to come back to the community (although it'd be playing nice). If the company sells (or gives it away for free) this modified software it doesn't need to give the modified source code away with it. BUT: The customer can copy this software for free and give it to everybody else for free (as long as it states that this software is still GPLed). And the customer can ask the company for the source code. The company has to give the source to the customer then... > Something that is in the Public Domain > remains in the Public Domain; otherwise, publishers would be able to > restrict Jane Austen's novels or Shakespeare's plays (rather than just > the publisher's editorial contributions). They can - sort of. The layout etc. in their books is copyrighted work. But you are free to type it from the books and give it away for free - as long as you aren't also typing additional stuff like translations from the old english to the new english words. CU, Christian -- The idea is to die young as late as possible. -- Ashley Montague _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
