Re: Is this software really GPL?
Note: I've left Anthony Youngman's email address in the headers, but I seem to have a local problem where email to Anthony bounces. [I can work around that, using telnet, but it's a pain.] quote I strongly suggest that you read the following two web pages: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/index.htm and the accompanying faq: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/faq.htm /quote On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 04:48:33PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Yeah, those webpages are basically indicate that they haven't read the GPL and don't understand what it means at all. That's what I thought at first. Rereading it, I think those pages are OK. Basically, all they seem to say is that if you distribute under the GPL you have to supply full sources to what you distribute. -- Raul Sorry for lookout mangling my cut-n-paste - this isn't quite a proper reply ... Did you look at the thing about subsidiaries ... if you *choose* to distribute *source* to your subsidiaries, you are then *obliged* to *publish* your source to the *world*! Imho this sets off the GPL's self-destruct clause (6 and 7) with the result that you can't distribute under the GPL because you can't give your recipients the freedom to distribute to whomsoever they please ... Cheers, Wol This transmission is intended for the named recipient only. It may contain private and confidential information. If this has come to you in error you must not act on anything disclosed in it, nor must you copy it, modify it, disseminate it in any way, or show it to anyone. Please e-mail the sender to inform us of the transmission error or telephone ECA International immediately and delete the e-mail from your information system. Telephone numbers for ECA International offices are: Sydney +61 (0)2 8272 5300, Hong Kong + 852 2121 2388, London +44 (0)20 7351 5000 and New York +1 212 582 2333.
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 08:04:31AM +0100, Anthony Youngman wrote: Sorry for lookout mangling my cut-n-paste - this isn't quite a proper reply ... And the guy who admins this system claims I should be able to email you now... so hopefully you won't have to do much more of that. Did you look at the thing about subsidiaries ... if you *choose* to distribute *source* to your subsidiaries, you are then *obliged* to *publish* your source to the *world*! The closest I can find to this is a claim that distribution to subsidiaries requires distribution under the GPL. Which seems reasonable. The most akward expression of that is: For instance, if you are a corporate IT department, and your corporation has franchisees, or locally incorporated subsidiaries, delivery to any of these would be a de facto breach of the GPL unless you also publish the full source of the application, including any changes or local customizations of the source, to an independent freely available solution. But even this doesn't say anything about having to distribute to anyone other than who you distribute to. Of course, it goes on to say: Please note that if you publish your work under the terms of the GPL, your competitors may fully use the knowledge and text you disseminate so long as they do so as permitted by the GPL. That doesn't mean you have to distribute the source to your competitors. Instead, it's pointing out that you can't prohibit employees [for example, ad subsidiaries] from distributing it to your competitors or to anyone else. If you did, you'd be violating the terms of the GPL. -- Raul
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 06:09:29AM -0400, I wrote: Instead, it's pointing out that you can't prohibit employees [for example, ad subsidiaries] from distributing it to your competitors or Er, I meant at, not ad. -- Raul
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 11:23:11AM +0100, Anthony Youngman wrote: But as I see it, they (QM) are adding an extra restriction, as proscribed by the GPL (clauses 6 and 7). If you distribute to subsidiaries, you may not stop them distributing to the world. But the GPL explicitly recognises internal distribution as a case where the GPL is not needed. I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I can't even find the word internal in the GPL. comment about SCO wasn't that justified. It's just that I tried to do exactly what they're trying to do, and I ended up being convinced it was impossible - to make sure nobody could wrest an Open Source project away from me ... TT can do it because they're trusted. MySQL can do it because they're trusted. EasyCo are trying to do it with legal finesse ... I'm not sure what you're talking about here, either. [I could guess, but how likely are my guesses to be accurate?] -- Raul
RE: Is this software really GPL?
Well, I'm using two different email addresses and computer systems - it's my home system that's subscribed to Debian Legal, and I was emailing from my work system ... But as I see it, they (QM) are adding an extra restriction, as proscribed by the GPL (clauses 6 and 7). If you distribute to subsidiaries, you may not stop them distributing to the world. But the GPL explicitly recognises internal distribution as a case where the GPL is not needed. QM are saying you must apply the GPL, even where the GPL itself says it does not apply. Or to word it slightly differently, you must not impose the normal rules of business confidentiality or employee contract. Actually, I think they've rewritten that section ... they pretty much said as much to me that they rewrote the web site yesterday based on previous emails I sent them. Unfortunately, I think my hard copy of the original is at home. When I get home, I'm going to compare what's there now with what was there last night. It should be interesting... Oh well, at least it proves they're open to rational argument, and my comment about SCO wasn't that justified. It's just that I tried to do exactly what they're trying to do, and I ended up being convinced it was impossible - to make sure nobody could wrest an Open Source project away from me ... TT can do it because they're trusted. MySQL can do it because they're trusted. EasyCo are trying to do it with legal finesse ... Cheers, Wol -Original Message- From: Raul Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 20 October 2004 11:09 To: Anthony Youngman Cc: debian-legal@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Is this software really GPL? On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 08:04:31AM +0100, Anthony Youngman wrote: Sorry for lookout mangling my cut-n-paste - this isn't quite a proper reply ... And the guy who admins this system claims I should be able to email you now... so hopefully you won't have to do much more of that. Did you look at the thing about subsidiaries ... if you *choose* to distribute *source* to your subsidiaries, you are then *obliged* to *publish* your source to the *world*! The closest I can find to this is a claim that distribution to subsidiaries requires distribution under the GPL. Which seems reasonable. The most akward expression of that is: For instance, if you are a corporate IT department, and your corporation has franchisees, or locally incorporated subsidiaries, delivery to any of these would be a de facto breach of the GPL unless you also publish the full source of the application, including any changes or local customizations of the source, to an independent freely available solution. But even this doesn't say anything about having to distribute to anyone other than who you distribute to. Of course, it goes on to say: Please note that if you publish your work under the terms of the GPL, your competitors may fully use the knowledge and text you disseminate so long as they do so as permitted by the GPL. That doesn't mean you have to distribute the source to your competitors. Instead, it's pointing out that you can't prohibit employees [for example, ad subsidiaries] from distributing it to your competitors or to anyone else. If you did, you'd be violating the terms of the GPL. -- Raul This transmission is intended for the named recipient only. It may contain private and confidential information. If this has come to you in error you must not act on anything disclosed in it, nor must you copy it, modify it, disseminate it in any way, or show it to anyone. Please e-mail the sender to inform us of the transmission error or telephone ECA International immediately and delete the e-mail from your information system. Telephone numbers for ECA International offices are: Sydney +61 (0)2 8272 5300, Hong Kong + 852 2121 2388, London +44 (0)20 7351 5000 and New York +1 212 582 2333.
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 11:23:33PM +0100, Anthony W. Youngman wrote: I strongly suggest that you read the following two web pages: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/index.htm and the accompanying faq: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/faq.htm Is there any reason to believe that by GPL they mean the GNU Public License? By this, I don't mean private email -- I mean, is there source available with the GPL associated with it? I can think of several possible scenarios: [1] GPL does mean GNU Public License, but no actual source is available under that license. In this case, the GPL grants no rights. [2] Similar, but some sources have that license and some don't. In this case, where the sources form complete programs, I'd think the GPL terms hold, and where sources are not licensed under the GPL or they can't be made to form programs, the GPL terms probably do not hold. [3] GPL stands for something else -- perhaps with some license clauses in common with the gnu license, but where something else is really going on. [4] GPL means GNU Public license and all sources are readily available under the GPL. In this case, the author of those pages is probably not competent. -- Raul
Re: Is this software really GPL?
[I'm taking the liberty of Cc:'ing you against Debian list policy. Please set MFT in the future if you wish people to respond to you personally.] On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Anthony W. Youngman wrote: Sorry if this is not quite the right place, but I'm somewhat fuming ... There's a really nice piece of software, called QM (it's a database) that has allegedly been released under the GPL by its owner, one Martin Philips, of a company called Ladybridge, in England. He was talked into doing this by a company called EasyCo, based in the States. I joined the mailing list, and then there was a post saying that some of the code was invariant. When I said that the GPL said I could change it, Martin said that if I tried he would set the lawyers on me! (And no, I'm not fuming at Martin - I get the impression he's been duped :-( Hrm. Sounds like you should ask him if he really intends for the code to be placed under the GPL, and suggest that he read: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ and http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html especially the preamble of the latter. If he or his lawyers have specific questions, they should ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] quote I strongly suggest that you read the following two web pages: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/index.htm and the accompanying faq: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/faq.htm /quote Yeah, those webpages are basically indicate that they haven't read the GPL and don't understand what it means at all. Unfortunatly, since the copyright holder appears to not have even licensed his code properly, and a case could be made that those are additional restrictions on top of the GPL, your only recourse is to try to get them to actually license the code under the GPL, full stop. If not, strongly suggest that they not misconstrue their program as being licensed under the GPL, and perhaps put the FSF in touch with them so that they get an idea that what they are doing is bad. Oh - and the guy I'm dealing with said he would be absolutely delighted if someone could get Debian to distribute this package! Heh. Until they clean up their licensing mess, there's no way we can distribute it. I'd even be wary of using this program at all based on the questionable assumptions upstream seems to be making. Don Armstrong -- Of course Pacman didn't influence us as kids. If it did, we'd be running around in darkened rooms, popping pills and listening to repetitive music. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 07:36:08PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: [4] GPL means GNU Public license and all sources are readily available under the GPL. In this case, the author of those pages is probably not competent. Actually, the pages at those urls look fine -- it's either myself or the other people you've been exchanging email with who aren't competent. -- Raul
Re: Is this software really GPL?
Note: I've left Anthony Youngman's email address in the headers, but I seem to have a local problem where email to Anthony bounces. [I can work around that, using telnet, but it's a pain.] quote I strongly suggest that you read the following two web pages: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/index.htm and the accompanying faq: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/faq.htm /quote On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 04:48:33PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Yeah, those webpages are basically indicate that they haven't read the GPL and don't understand what it means at all. That's what I thought at first. Rereading it, I think those pages are OK. Basically, all they seem to say is that if you distribute under the GPL you have to supply full sources to what you distribute. -- Raul
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 07:36:08PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: Is there any reason to believe that by GPL they mean the GNU Public License? The G in GPL is General, not GNU. (I'm sure you know this, but you said GNU Public License several times in this mail.) I can think of several possible scenarios: [1] GPL does mean GNU Public License, but no actual source is available under that license. In this case, the GPL grants no rights. Like case #4, if this is true, the author is probably not competent. For example, You cannot install, or ask your customer to install a GPL version of OpenQM and then install your own product unless that product is also delivered to the user under GPL or an approved variant. If you are going to distribute multiple copies of openQM within your company, you will probably need a commercially licensed version of openQM. These statements have nothing to do with the GNU General Public License. (I won't expound on why, since I'm pretty sure that everyone listening already knows.) Maybe we should forward this to the FSF; they would probably be interested in trying to have the misinformation being spread on this page corrected (or having a note inserted that the GPL here is not their GPL, but I doubt that's actually the case--unless the author of this page is deliberately trying to spread confusion). Spreading false information about the GPL does significant damage to Free Software. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Raul Miller wrote: quote I strongly suggest that you read the following two web pages: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/index.htm and the accompanying faq: http://easyco.com/initiative/openqm/opensource/faq.htm /quote On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 04:48:33PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Yeah, those webpages are basically indicate that they haven't read the GPL and don't understand what it means at all. That's what I thought at first. Rereading it, I think those pages are OK. Basically, all they seem to say is that if you distribute under the GPL you have to supply full sources to what you distribute. Yeah, which is an additional restriction not present in the GPL. The primary problem is that they're construing that list as a set of restrictions against when you can use the GPLed version, which doesn't fit with the GPL at all. [You can always use a GPLed program, you just can't violate the terms of the GPL itself.] It's possible that they have done this unintentionally, and intend this list as merely a what does using the GPLed version mean I have to do? query, rather than an in order to use the GPLed version you must do (or not do) the following list. Either way, it really needs some clarification. Don Armstrong -- Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come. -- Tussman's Law http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 07:46:07PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 07:36:08PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: Is there any reason to believe that by GPL they mean the GNU Public License? The G in GPL is General, not GNU. (I'm sure you know this, but you said GNU Public License several times in this mail.) Sorry about that, I meant GNU General Public License. Anyways, I'm having more second thoughts than just about my acronym expansion. I can think of several possible scenarios: [1] GPL does mean GNU Public License, but no actual source is available under that license. In this case, the GPL grants no rights. Like case #4, if this is true, the author is probably not competent. For example, You cannot install, or ask your customer to install a GPL version of OpenQM and then install your own product unless that product is also delivered to the user under GPL or an approved variant. This would be accurate for the case that your own product incorporates sources from OpenQM. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. If you are going to distribute multiple copies of openQM within your company, you will probably need a commercially licensed version of openQM. This one is wierd -- but it might be true if some other assumptions are held to be the case (such as: you don't want to provide source code within your company, perhaps for policy reasons). probably is a weasel word. Maybe we should forward this to the FSF; they would probably be interested in trying to have the misinformation being spread on this page corrected (or having a note inserted that the GPL here is not their GPL, but I doubt that's actually the case--unless the author of this page is deliberately trying to spread confusion). Spreading false information about the GPL does significant damage to Free Software. I'd wait a day or two, to see if someone can make better sense of this. Thanks, -- Raul
Re: Is this software really GPL?
Raul Miller wrote: Is there any reason to believe that by GPL they mean the GNU Public License? Just a note: s/GNU Public License/General Public License/g. GPL is General Public License, and GNU GPL is GNU General Public License; there is no such thing as the GNU Public License, although it is a rather common misinterpretation. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 08:25:07PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: You cannot install, or ask your customer to install a GPL version of OpenQM and then install your own product unless that product is also delivered to the user under GPL or an approved variant. This would be accurate for the case that your own product incorporates sources from OpenQM. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. It's misleading. I can install OpenQM--or ask customers to--and then install whatever I want. If it's a library, I can't link against it with GPL-incompatible code, but that has nothing to do with how it was installed or what I ask people to do. If you are going to distribute multiple copies of openQM within your company, you will probably need a commercially licensed version of openQM. This one is wierd -- but it might be true if some other assumptions are held to be the case (such as: you don't want to provide source code within your company, perhaps for policy reasons). probably is a weasel word. The statement is badly misleading. It doesn't matter much to me if it can be interpreted in a true way, since the only thing I really care about here is the spread of confusion about the GPL. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Is this software really GPL?
Glenn Maynard wrote: On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 08:25:07PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: You cannot install, or ask your customer to install a GPL version of OpenQM and then install your own product unless that product is also delivered to the user under GPL or an approved variant. This would be accurate for the case that your own product incorporates sources from OpenQM. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. It's misleading. I can install OpenQM--or ask customers to--and then install whatever I want. If it's a library, I can't link against it with GPL-incompatible code, but that has nothing to do with how it was installed or what I ask people to do. I suspect their intent is to make it clear that you can't weasel out of the GPL's requirements by simply providing your application separately from the GPLed OpenQM, which is true. I agree that this, like many statements on their pages, are badly misleading; on the other hand, there are several things on their page that sound like they actually have a better understanding of the GPL than most, such as their explicit note that GPL != non-commercial, as well as a statement that when someone is violating the GPL, what they are really violating is copyright law, since they are distributing without a license. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Is this software really GPL?
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 08:44:46PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: It's misleading. Yes. There are lawyers who will express things in a misleading fashion if they think that's in the best interests of their clients, and if they think they will not get in legal trouble for doing so. -- Raul
