Re: A little GPL riddle (was: GPL as an evaluation license)
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 2:09 AM, Aviad Mandel aviad.man...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:22 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote: Someone gave you, i.e., conveyed, distributed, that object code whose only purpose is to create the browser when linked to some GPLed code. Therefore this object code is derivative work of the GPL code. Therefore if it is not GPLed the aforementioned someone is in violation of GPL. A user of such a browser who wants to have a look at or modify the browser will have a petty good case. Purpose? Where does the GPL say anything about purpose? GPL v2,.paragraph 2: These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: A little GPL riddle (was: GPL as an evaluation license)
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 2:09 AM, Aviad Mandel aviad.man...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:22 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote: Someone gave you, i.e., conveyed, distributed, that object code whose only purpose is to create the browser when linked to some GPLed code. Therefore this object code is derivative work of the GPL code. Therefore if it is not GPLed the aforementioned someone is in violation of GPL. A user of such a browser who wants to have a look at or modify the browser will have a petty good case. Purpose? Where does the GPL say anything about purpose? GPL v2,.paragraph 2: These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. And in GPL v3: Preamble: To “modify” a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a “modified version” of the earlier work or a work “based on” the earlier work. A “covered work” means either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program. Note the adapt all or part of the work language that is relevant to what constitutes covered work. Now read Sections 5 and 6 of GPL v3 carefully. They are not particularly easy to read, but you will discern that all parts of covered work must be GPLed. Exceptions are also listed, e.g., aggregation, system libraries, etc. - defined in Section 1. Note also the definition of Corresponding Source in Section 1. I hope it resolves your confusion. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
[OT] Job Offer: Configuration Management Engineer
Hi, [Posting this for a friend. If interested, please send me your CV and I'll forward it.] A company in the Herzeliya area is looking for a person to take charge of their configuration management needs. This is a full-time position. Requirements as follows: - At least 2-3 year as team leader in infrastructure - Familiarity with UNIX/Linux at administrator level - Experience with managing version life cycle (subversion, VS UAT) - Experience with mnaging multiple versions for multiple projects - Experence installing and supporting development, QA production environments - Familiarity with Windows at power user level. Familiarity with the following are advantageous: - Make - Ant - Perl - Windows batch files - StarTeam - Virtualization - Apache/Tomcat configuration Cheers, Rony ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: A little GPL riddle (was: GPL as an evaluation license)
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.orgwrote: I hope it resolves your confusion. Unfortunately not. I am familiar with the relevant parts, and I agree that if you read them over and over again, you get kinda convinced that mixing GPL code with closed-source objects is the work of satan. But I'm looking for a smoking gun. If the object code was compiled against GPLed header files, it may be considered containing copyrighted material from its GPLed counterpart, but the GPLed wrappers solve this. But if nothing was really *copied* from the GPLed code, the GPL has no say about the object code. So if both sets of software, proprietary and GPLed, arrived Glatt Kosher on the target computer, where is the wrongdoing? It's true that the mix-compiled binary can't be *copied* anymore, because the GPL is void from this point and on, but is the compilation itself illegal? Or the execution of the binary? To my best knowledge, the only attempt to control the usage of software, once copied legally on a computer, is those questionable EULAs, which take the form of a contract between the user and the software vendor, and are not based on any general laws. This may be a good time to say: IANAL either. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: A little GPL riddle (was: GPL as an evaluation license)
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011, Aviad Mandel wrote about A little GPL riddle (was: GPL as an evaluation license): And please, I know that the mixed binary is derived work and must be distributed further under the same license. But the thing is that nobody The key error here is the word must. It's actually, can. I.e., the person who gets this mixed binary *can* distribute it to others, and this is exactly what your hypothetical company is afraid of. This is the whole idea of copyleft - it isn't about guaranteeing the illegality of copying - it's about guaranteeing the freedom to copy. In other words, the company who did the hanky-panky you described did nothing illegal. But so would its users if they further distribute the mixed binaries. -- Nadav Har'El|Monday, Apr 11 2011, 7 Nisan 5771 n...@math.technion.ac.il |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |I have a watch cat! If someone breaks in, http://nadav.harel.org.il |she'll watch. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Richard Stallman - Free Software and Your Freedom - at HaifaU
Hello all, RMS will speak at the Haifa University on July 21st, hosted by Prof. Sheizaf Refaeli. For further details see the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189925137718662 -- Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda. http://ladypine.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
