On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 01:53:53PM +0300, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > >>I'll explain. The GPL expressly forbids you to create any derived work > >>that is not GPL itself. > >> > >> > > > >[some nitpicking follows] > > > >The work cannot "be" GPL; it must be licensed under the terms of the > >GPL, but this license doesn't have to be exclusive. > > > > > Where did you pick that one up? Can you show me the wording ANYWHERE > that supports that statement?
If the GPL allows you to create a derivative work which includes a GPL-protected product or parts of it, *you* own the copyright for the derivative work *as a whole*, even though the constituent parts taken from other works retain their respective copyrights. The derivative work has its own copyright. This is a matter of copyright law. As the copyright owner of the derivative work, you are free to license it under any number of licenses and any number of conditions. The only restrictions placed on you are those which allowed you to create the derivative work in the first place - the restrictions listed in the GPL; the relevant among them is your duty to "cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License." To comply with that, you have to license your derivative work to all third parties under the GPL. You don't have to license it *only* under the GPL. There is no such requirement in the GPL. Of course, any and all users of your derivative work will have all the freedoms promised to them by the GPL, because your work is automatically licensed to them on the terms of the GPL, even if they received it from you under a different license. Additionally, all those users cannot deny the freedoms of the GPL from your derivative work as they distribute it further, because the only redistribution rights for the GPLed parts of the derivative work that they have come from the GPL. Additionally, even if you license your work to them under a license different from the GPL, the distribution terms of the GPL still force you to distribute to them appropriate notices and a copy of the GPL, so that they are informed about their freedoms. So the additional wiggle room you have is not that much (but I did say I was nitpicking!). [caveat 1: I'm less sure of the following than I am of the preceding, and am offering it as a tentative example:] It does seem to allow you, for instance, to sell a license for the derivative work which includes the obligation from your side for technical support of the installation (rather than sell such support as a separate service, which you are also free to do, of course). The particular license you're selling may, for instance, restrict the user from installing the software on more than one machine *under the terms of this license* (e.g. they won't be able to install on more than one machine and get tech support for all the installations). The user will still have all the freedoms of the GPL for the work, and they will be informed of their freedoms by the copy of the GPL and the appropriate notices in your work. Caveat 2: I'm not a lawyer. Don't take any of my words as seriously as you would a lawyer's. > >You're free to license your derived work under any license you want, > >restrictive as it may be, as long as you *also* license it under the > >terms of the GPL. > > > That statement is incorrect, pure and simple. > > If you wrote a piece of code, and licensed it under the GPL, and I > create derived work, the GPL is the only license with which I can > distribute my derived work. Anything else will be violating your copyright. See above for my reading of the GPL on this issue. It partly derives from an illuminating mailing list discussion with RMS about this many years ago which clarified some things for me that weren't clear before (I'm having trouble locating it just now, still trying). I'm glad we agree on the issue of not having to distribute at all; that second nit of mine did conflict with your "The GPL expressly forbids you to create any derived work that is not GPL itself", but I didn't mean to contradict you, merely to clarify this small, but important, point. -- avva > > >That is not an academic distinction; quite a few companies > >make their living upon it (offering various products under commercial > >licenses as well as the GPL, with the commercial license offering > >additional benefits for the client). > > > > > No company does that. At least, none that I know of. I think you are > mistaking dual licensing and relicensing. > > MySQL AB, TrollTech, Sun (for OpenOffice) and AOL (for Mozilla) offer > dual licensing. This means that they take code FOR WHICH THEY ARE THE > SOLE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS and license them under two licenses, one of which > is the GPL. This comes at a cost, however. If you want your code to be > integrated into OpenOffice, you have to assign the copyright for your > code to Sun, otherwise THEY ARE NOT AT LIBERTY TO DISTRIBUTE IT IN THEIR > CLOSED PRODUCT. > > I repeat - you can do the trick you mention only if you get consent for > it from all copyright holders. Otherwise, if any copyright holder only > gives you the GPL as a license, everything must be GPL. > > >Additionally, you're free to *create* a derived work and not offer it to > >anyone under the GPL, as long as you're not publishing it under a > >different license. That's also not an academic distinction; it applies to > >all software developed for in-house use. > > > > > That is true, and is a result of the GPL wording (and meaning, mind > you). The GPL only requires you to give the sources to those parties you > gave the binaries to. This is not a mistake, and is an intended > consequence. When Stallman was in Israel I asked him to give an example > of a license accepted by the Open Source Initiative that he does not > consider free. He gave one of Apple's licenses, that require you to > publish any change you make to the program, and explained that it was > going too far for his taste. > > Shachar > > -- > Shachar Shemesh > Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd. > http://www.lingnu.com/ > > > > -- avva "There's nothing simply good, nor ill alone" -- John Donne ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
