Author: Eric Oldre
Date: 09:57:00 06/20/05
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On June 20, 2005 at 10:35:35, Madhavan wrote: >On June 20, 2005 at 10:32:33, Cesar Contreras wrote: > >>I'm not sure, in my understanding every derivated work from Fruit must be GPL. >> >>can it go commercial? >> >>if so can anybody make it commercial or just fabien? > >So,are you planning to somehow modify the fruit code and sell it commercially >without revealing fruit's code? > >just another Toga,Moga clone. > >>in my undersanding (point me wrong), fruit not longer belongs to fabien because >>it's GPL. > >No!it belongs to Fabien,I dont give a damn about GPL or whatever it is. >Fabien did Fruit,it belongs to him,thats it. > >ok then Although we'd all love to see Fabien be able to benefit from his great work on Fruit. My understanding of the GPL differs a bit from those are are saying he could choose to take it closed source if he wants. Basically my understanding is that when you release something under the GPL you are making an contract with the public. For certain benefits (discussed below) you are agreeing to release the source of any new versions of the program that you publicly distribute. What you get in exchange for this, is possibly help from the public. People examinining your source, testing your program, reporting bugs, fixing bugs, giving suggestions. All of this is done to your program because you've made the promise that all future versions of your program will also be GPL'd. Without that guarantee, some of the people who have helped you might not have been inclined to do so. This would be like if Linus Torvards decided next week that he wanted to take Linux commercial. That wouldn't be fair to all those other people who have helped him make linux the great program it is today. I believe Fabien could still sell Fruit. As long as he released the code along with it. Much like there are commercial companies that sell linux. I would probably be inclined to purchase a copy. (for a reasonable price). Simply because I apprieciate and respect his work. I'm also going to guess that Fabien is well aware of these limitations already. And was before he ever released Fruit. Of course there is also the possibility that I am totally off- base here and am completely misinterpreting the meaning of the GPL. Eric
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