----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dan Collins" <[email protected]>
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 9:15 AM, Jay Ashworth <[email protected]> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > >> From: "Tim Starling" <[email protected]> > > > >> On 30/12/11 08:30, Dan Collins wrote: > >> > On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Huib Laurens > >> > <[email protected]> > >> > wrote: > >> >> It doesn't need to be compatible or open-source right? > >> > > >> > GPL 2.0 section 2 b: > >> > > >> > 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. > >> > >> You can modify GPL software for private use. That clause only kicks > >> in > >> when you "distribute or publish" the work, so you're generally OK > >> if > >> you're just using it within a single company. Maybe that's what > >> Huib > >> meant by "closed source". > > > > And since we're not under the *Affero* GPL, you can modify it, *and > > make it > > publicly available*, and still not be constrained by the licence (I > > don't > > think I've got that backwards, do I?) > > You may be slightly confused or I may be slightly not a lawyer, but: > > The Affero licence states that you may not use, distribute, or publish > any licensed or derivative work under any other licence. > The vanilla GPL states that you may not distribute or publish licensed > or derivative work under any other licence. > > It is therefore acceptable for Big Business Inc. to modify MediaWiki > and **use** it as bigbusiness.com, however they may not sell or give > (**distribute**) their modified version to any other company or > individual unless they obey the terms of the License. So if whoever it > is decided to modify MediaWiki by adding a closed-source extension, > however that works, and then gave that to their customers to put on > their websites, then they have violated the GPL, because they must > make available the complete source of their **derivative work** which > they have **distributed**. If however they have decided to modify > MediaWiki by adding a closed-source extension, however that works, and > then placed that on their servers at the request of a customer, then > they have not violated the GPL because their derivative work is being > **used** but not distributed. > > This sort of thing gets complicated when you think about things like > paid hosting - you're selling it and making it available for use but > not distributing it. You'd think that they're breaking some provision > by making money off of their modified MediaWiki but I'm pretty sure > they aren't as long as the derivative work stays on their servers. > (but is the HTML generated then also a derivative work? probably not?) Ok, ok, I'll go look. :-) Yeah, I was right. That's what the AGPL does: it makes it a violation of license to make non- public changes to a GPLd app, *and then make it available as a webservice, without physically distributing the code*. The GPL proper does not prevent that, which is the topic we're discussing here: since the MediaWiki code is not under AGPL, you can modify it, not release your mods, *and run it on your own web service*, and not violate the license. If you distribute it outside your organization in such a fashion, though, *that* trips the traditional GPL. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink [email protected] Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
