On May 12, 2011, at 10:43 AM, Dov Rosenberg wrote: > The key part of the GPL license that poisons its use for commercial purposes > is the very first clause: > > 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains > a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed > under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, > refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" > means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: > that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, > either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another > language. > > If your program makes use of a piece of GPL code and will not function > without it – it is considered a derivative work and must be distributed under > the GPL license.
To my knowledge, this is a statement of opinion with no basis in case law. Furthermore, according to IP Law Specialist and OSI general counsel Lawrence Rosen: "The primary indication of whether a new program is a derivative work is whether the source code of the original program was used, modified, translated or otherwise changed in any way to create the new program. If not, then I would argue that it is not a derivative work." http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366 That is also how I read section 2 of GPL v2. I haven't gotten a C&D from the GPL police yet, so I can only assume we're fine. In fact, if you think Wonder is in violation of the GPL, I would encourage you to report it immediately: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html Ramsey > > We had to remove the MySQL JDBC driver from our software that we used to ship > as a convenience for customers. They can download it themselves and use it – > but we can not supply it as part of our commercial product. > > The SAP/Oracle lawsuit was based on the fact that even though you can > download anything for free off Oracle's website to evaluate – you are still > bound by the terms of the license agreement that you have to agree to get the > software, regardless if you read and or understand it. Whether it is > distributing a jar that should be paid for, or using a component in an > unlicensed manner either of those things are cause for a lawsuit. Especially > if you are a large company with deep pockets > > Dov > > > > > On 5/12/11 10:28 AM, "Ramsey Gurley" > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > On May 12, 2011, at 8:43 AM, Dov Rosenberg wrote: > > Depends if you want to make money from your app or not. In either case the > license that you release your app under can't violate the terms of any of the > components included in your app. If you included GPL licensed components – it > would be a violation of the GPL license to charge money for your app. See the > note from the GPL v2 license below > 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion > of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and > distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 > above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: > … > b) You must 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. > > I'm sorry... am I misreading something? > > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html > > That section is based on the opening statement. I'm not a lawyer, but I like > to believe I have a pretty firm grasp of the english language. As far as I > can tell, 2 b) only applies if you first "modify your copy or copies of the > Program". > > Nowhere does it state that including a GPL'ed binary library in your app > forbids you from selling your own code under any license you see fit. To > further clarify 2 a) b) and c), the license immediately follows with: > > "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" > > Regarding the article you linked to, I don't see any mention of OSS or GPL > anywhere. It appears to be an article about piracy of commercial enterprise > software. I certainly didn't see any corroborating information or case law > which would interpret the above statements as: "it would be a violation of > the GPL license to charge money for your app" > > > Ramsey > > > _______________________________________________ > Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. > Webobjects-dev mailing list > ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) > Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: > http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/webobjects-dev/drosenberg%40inquira.com > > This email sent to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Webobjects-dev mailing list ([email protected]) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/webobjects-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to [email protected]
