On Friday, 12 December 2014 23:52:55 UTC, Ralf Hemmecke wrote: > > >> 1) Distributing binary + a patch without full sorces. > > GPL does not forbid that. GPL only says that you have to make the > sources available in a form that they are normally build from. > But you don't have to distribute them together with the binary. > You don't even have to make them public, ither. The only thing you have > to do is to send somebody the source (for free) whoever wants to see them. > > So if you have already the sources somewhere (for example at SF) and the > patch *is* the the form of source for this modified binary, then I see > nothing that would contradict the GPL if you put somewhere the "original > source + the patch". > > As Dima already said, nowadays there are so many free services. So > having the patch living in a branch of the source code repository is not > a big issue. > > I'm anyway against binaries without their respective sources. > > >> Or just "courtesy binary" for some archtecture. > > If you can build such a binary and the next day you are hit by a bus, > who is going to provide such "courtesy binary" if there are no sources > available? > > >> GPL requres to keep sorces for download on the server... > > Yes. But FriCAS can be easily build from the repository via "make". So > the only thing is to keep the sources in the repository and tell from > which version the binary was build and how. > > >> 2) One may wish to embed encryption key for classical cryptography > >> inside executable, distribute this executable to others so that > >> they can send enctypted messages to him. This is not very secure > >> but give some protection and may be best thing available if public > >> key cryptography is not an option. > > > this sounds like a spyware application, ghm, ghm, ghm... > > I also think that this is a non-issue for FriCAS. > > >> However, GPL requires souces (with no obfuscation!), so extracting > >> encryption key becomes trivial. > > That reminds me of "security through obscurity". > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity > > >> 3) There are GPL incompatible free licences. Creating and > >> distributing combined programs is reasonable, but forbidden if > >> licences are incompatible > > More clearly, distributing combined binary would be forbidden. But I > don't see that as a problem of the GPL. > If I look at the list > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses > and the respective list of compatible licenses above, I'd even claim > that being incompatible with GPL is rather a non-issue. In particular > for GPL3, they have taken measures to get more licenses compatible with > it. See for example Apache 2.0. > > >> I do not know how careful you are. I believe that normal folks > >> given clear statement of licence do not scan file looking for > >> another licence in the middle which gives different terms. > > Before I redistribute I'm usually double careful. Of course, I also may > sometimes be wrong. But still I think that if people get something for > free, it's not unreasonable to ask them to at least follow the license > under which they get the stuff. > > ad TeX style and GPL ... > > > This is not true: this is akin to saying that photos taken by a Canon > > camera carry Canon copyright, or executables build by gcc are under > > GPL. > > Dima, > in fact, it's not soooo easy with (La)TeX. It depends on how you see it. > One way is that TeX (the program) is a compiler that translates the > sources (i.e. .tex, .sty, and .bib, ... files -- which can count as the > program sources since TeX is a programming language). Then the .dvi or > .pdf file would be considered as the compiled form of the sources. With > this point of view, Waldek is right.
I don't get your point. There is no problem like this with GPL, and I don't know why this was mentioned in the 1st place... Surely you can put out a software with a license saying that by using it you sell yourself into slavery, but this does not mean that something is wrong with GPL... > But I don't really think that most > people thing that way. Unfortunately, there is no clear statement from > the FSF about this. > > But also this is somehow a non-issue. If my published paper would be GPL > then I have to provide the .tex and .sty files. So what? > Why is that even mentioned? There are no GPL-licensed programs that tell you anything about copyright of the data you process with them. Dima -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/fricas-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
