Re: webmin license
Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org> writes:
> I mean that, if you do license something that way, your license is
> self-defeating, because it doesn't effectively grant anybody else the
> right to redistribute your code!
No. It is completely self-consistent to say
I have my made own conditions for copying this program. They
happen to be identical to the GPL except I add the sentence
"If you have a large beard you may not charge a fee"
to the end of clause 1.
All of the occurences of "this license" in the GPL become occurences
of "this license" in the virtual license that statement describes, and
when they occur in the virtual license they refer to the virtual
license, not to the original GPL.
You probably don't want to ship a copy of your conditions with
the program because if would probably be a violation of the FSF's
copyright on most of that text. But you are certainly allowed to
*reference* it, and as long as your users and the judge can figure
out which rules you agree to be bound by it'll be legally OK.
> restrictions not authorized by the GPL is inconsistent with the GPL, and
> has the effect of not authorizing any further redistribution at all.
No. A license based on the GPL does not need to be consistent with the
original GPL at all. It just has to be *internally* consistent.
> Summary: if someone says "You may distribute this under the GPL, except
> never to person X", then either
> - You may distribute it to someone under the pure GPL,
No, since the author never allowed you to use the pure GPL, which is a
different license than the one that applies to the program.
--
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