On Tue, Sep 17, 2002 at 11:48:28PM +0200, Noel Koethe wrote: > You are not changing the GPL. The copyright holder can choose the license > so you can say: my program has the license GPL with the following execption > or with the following addition. Only if the FSF is the copyright holder > you have to ask them. The wget copyright holder is the FSF an this is > the reason for the FSF in the first sentence: > "In addition, as a special exception, the Free Software Foundation > gives permission..."
You can relax restrictions externally, as here, but I don't believe you can place additional restrictions on it. For example, one can't say "This program is under the GPL, except you can't use it for commercial purposes". That's because of clause 6; if you did that, your license would say, in total, "you can't distribute this program with any more restrictions than are listed in the GPL [GPL#6], AND you have the following additional restriction [that isn't part of the GPL]", which is a contradiction. I believe this is deliberate; the FSF doesn't want people "misusing" their license by adding additional restrictions. I don't know how strong this is; I suppose you could also relax #6, but I'm not going there. :) (IANAL.) I only mention all this in response to "or with the following addition"; it doesn't affect the OpenSSL issue at all (hence the OT). -- Glenn Maynard
