> > With Firebird's MPL style license, my common sense interpretation is > > that you only have to open source your mods that have directly to do > > with the MPL'ed code. > > Correction yet again: You don't "have to open source" anything. You > can only lawfully redistribute works derived from other people's > MPL-covered modules if you comply with the MPL source-access (and other) > provisions as to that module.
But that essentially means the same thing as what I said! "Complying with MPL source-access provisions" means that you have to open source your mods (i.e. make them freely available). You're just couching it in annoying lawyer-ish. There is a reason why I didn't bother with explicitly bringing up the redistribution clause and it is that in most cases, usage of your modifications by others implies redistribution. There are only a few cases where usage by others does not require redistribution and I not think they apply to the original posters' situation. > Now, I don't care about this soap-opera fixation with personalities. > Legal questions get decided by judges in courts. Intelligent parties > attempt to guess what _they_, not a programmer in Massachussetts, would > proclaim on said legal matters. I think this is an oversimplification. Surely one of the jobs of the FSF's lawyers would be to proactive lobby for interpretations of the GPL in cases where the interpretation is not yet clear. And of course RMS will have a big say on the points they lobby on. Also, check out how the license for the rest of CLISP became GPL because it happened to use readline. Surely you can't say RMS did not have a strong hand in influencing how the GPL was interpreted (by the author of CLISP) in this case. Not everything ends up getting decided in the courts. > Besides, you're ignoring my point. You asserted that GPLed code > could not be called "commercial". I listed counter-examples. What I asserted was that a _GPL-compatible license_ cannot be considered a _commercial license_. I explain why below. > The term "commercial licence" is about as meaningless and confusing as > your earlier term "closed source". I have no problem with the term 'commercial license'. I understood it immediately as meaning a license you have to pay for in order to take advantage of the rights (and absence of obligations - such as the need to open up your source) it grants. Simple, no? In that sense, a GPL-compatible license can't be called commercial by any stretch of the word because you don't have to pay for the rights it grants you. I never said a GPL'ed *product* couldn't be commercially exploited. I just said the _license_ itself wasn't a commercial one. Similarly, I think most people do not find it hard to figure out what "closed source" means. It simply is a product whose source is not made available under any circumstance. Most people would consider the source for Java and many Delphi components open because the circumstances under which you are allowed to _view_ (not necessarily use or redistribute) them are pretty liberal. They may not be Open Source(tm), but they could be called open-sourced/open source to a certain degree. That's how I feel these terms would/should be intuitively interpreted. > Of course not. _Please_ be specific. You said "cut and paste"; you > didn't say "cut and paste GPL-encumbered code". I inferred from context > that you mean cutting and pasting _data_. I don't have time to sit and > guess what you mean. I _was_ specific. Check my post again, the phrase I used was: 'copy-and-paste source code FROM A GPL'ED CODE BASE' > Ascribing motives to licences _themselves_ is passing over to the > transrational. LOL! Of course when one says 'the GPL's goal/agenda' one means the *reasons* behind why it was created in the first place. Just like the motive behind most proprietary licenses is financial gain for the license provider. _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at http://marc.free.net.ph To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
