Gabriel Sechan wrote: > >From: "John H. Robinson, IV" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >country (think China) use and modify the software without having to > >reveal their identify? > > > >In the case of *forced* publication of changes, this fails. The LGPL and > >GPL both pass this test. As long as you do not distribute the resultant > >binary, you are not forced to disclose any modifications. This is > >actually A Good Thing. > > > >Forced speech is not Free speech. > > But if you're running a public website, you are already not anonymous. I > don't think this is germane to the issue. > > Personally I think using it to run a service on a public website *shoul* > equal distribution, but I don't think this is currently the case.
This is one of the GPL loopholes. We can ask about the _intent_ of the GPL. RMS came up with the idea of the GPL when he was unable to fix some programs on his system. So he came up with the GPL to combat that problem. In the case of the webapp (http://www.cooltext.com/) it is not running on your system. Even if you had the sources, and any changes, you could not improve nor modify the service. If cooltext had interfaced with a custom bit of hardware that offloaded the rendering, and modified Gimp to use that, it would even be useless to you without that hardware. So was the intent to be able to fix your own system, or was the intent to be able to fix any software that you might use? I _tend_ to fall into the former camp. However, if I were to use a GPL'd program, and I modified it to offer a web service as such, I would make sources and changes available. Not because I feel I must, but because I feel I should. -john -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
