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Subject: Re: Linux: how probable is it that it will be relevant in the near future?

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 09:05:52 11/11/98

Go up one level in this thread


On November 11, 1998 at 03:30:31, David Blackman wrote:
[snip]
>>  If you produce something with copyleft tools, it also is copyleft.
>
>This is not true. I suggest you actually read the GPL.
Well, I can see that you are as arrogant as I am!  Only a great fool would make
suc a statement as I did without having bothered to read the document.  I have
enclosed a copy of it for you to peruse at your leisure.  This is the new
version of GPL, which is supposed to remove the "Copyleft Virus" and yet clearly
still fails to do so.

IF YOUR PROGRAM IS DERIVED FROM GNU PROGRAMS IT IS COPYLEFT.  Section 0.:
..."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."

YOU CAN'T CHARGE FOR IT: Section 2 "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."  See also 3. b & c, and Section 6.

YOU HAVE TO GIVE AWAY YOUR SOURCE CODE:  Section 3: "a. Accompany it with the
complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed
under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for
software interchange;"

>Nowhere does it say
>this. There are a large number of programs for Linux, many of them
>developed with GCC and other Gnu tools, that are sold under proprietry
>licences. Richard Stallman is probably a bit unhappy about this, but
>he has said several times he is not going to change the GPL to make it
>illegal.
Here is the license.  I don't care what people are saying about it.  I can read
it for myself.

Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distribution, and Modification

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. (Hereinafter, translation is included without
limitation in the term ``modification''.) Each licensee is addressed as ``you''.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by
this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not
restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents
constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by
running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.


1.
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you
receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately
publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty;
keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at
your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.


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:

a.
You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change.

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.

c.
If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must
cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary
way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright
notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions,
and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the
Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement,
your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

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
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and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your
rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the
right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the
Program.

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the
Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this
License.


3.
You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2)
in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
provided that you also do one of the following:

a.
Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which
must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

b.
Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any
third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source
distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code,
to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

c.
Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute
corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial
distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable
form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the
source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
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need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or
binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself
accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy
from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code
from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third
parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.


4.
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as
expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify,
sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate
your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or
rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so
long as such parties remain in full compliance.

5.
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.
However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program
or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not
accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any
work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do
so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the
Program or works based on it.

6.
Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the
recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy,
distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may
not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights
granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third
parties to this License.

7.
If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or
for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on
you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the
conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this
License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your
obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a
consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those
who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you
could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from
distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any
particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the
section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or
other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this
section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software
distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many
people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software
distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to
distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that
choice.

This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a
consequence of the rest of this License.


8.
If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries
either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder
who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical
distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is
permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this
License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

9.
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the
General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in
spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems
or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies
a version number of this License which applies to it and ``any later version'',
you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version
or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the
Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any
version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.


10.
If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose
distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for
permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation,
write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this.
Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of
all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of
software generally.



NO WARRANTY


11.
BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE
PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED
IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS
IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF
ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

12.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY
COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE
PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL,
SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY
TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING
RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF
THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER
PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS




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