[clue-tech] GPL provisions (was CentOS)

[Angelo Bertolli]

Ed Hill wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-10-27 at 11:34 -0700, mike havlicek wrote:
>  
>
>>Think of Bell labs... the distribution of SysV and the
>>development of BSD. 
>>
>>How did any commercial UNIX ever evolve? The license
>>for SysV was "cheeply" sold to UCB ... I think they
>>paid $35 for the source. But up until recently how was
>>e.g. Sun able to require paid fees for OS software
>>aquired as they did? Or how bout SCO? HP-UX, IRIX???
>>    
>>
>
>Hi Mike,
>
>What you're talking about above is only tangentially related to the GPL.
>What we were discussing was how the GPL forbids the creation of
>proprietary software from GPL-ed software by adding bits or adding
>license terms.  It simply cannot (legally) be done.
>
>Licenses are a kind of contract.  And, like any contract, you should
>read it and understand what is being stipulated.  If your company or
>livelihood or whatever depends upon the terms then you should, by all
>means, seek good legal advice to help you understand the rules,
>ramifications, etc.
>  
>
Almost every question I can think of is answered on the FAQ:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

I've heard a lot more confusion about what you can and cannot do under 
the GPL in recent times.  It can be very confusing to people who haven't 
been familiar with it.  One important note is that not all GPL'ed 
software is treated the same by their authors.  For example in Linux, 
merely created a piece of software that runs on top of the kernel does 
not constitude being "part of the same software" and does not require 
that software to be put under GPL.  The kernel authors decided this long 
ago.  However, if you go to the MySQL site, you will see that they are 
more strict.  They consider any software that uses and is distributed 
with MySQL to be under the terms of the GPL.  I have no idea if a court 
would agree that this constitutes the "same program."

Angelo

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