Re: Forking and relicensing issues (different)
On Mon, May 10, 1999 at 09:37:07AM -0400, Collins M. Ben wrote:
> On Mon, May 10, 1999 at 09:22:18AM -0400, Nils Lohner wrote:
> > Can you take GPL'ed code and use it with a closed source program? i.e.
> > take the GPL'ed program do_everything and someone wants to write a library
> > for it that's do_one_more_thing but keep the library closed, is that OK? If
> > they want to distribute and sell that, they distribute the source code to
> > the GPL part (with modifications), and the binary (executable), right? I
> > would assume it is, but modifications etc. to the original GPL code must be
> > made public. Am I missing something here, or is that about the extent of
> > it? Or is that illegal under the GPL and the entire source code must be
> > made public because its used with some GPL'ed code?
>
> I suggest going to ftp.be.com and checking out the /pub/gnu directory.
> They have done exactly this with their boot loader. It uses some parts of
> the Linux kernel (those parts are released in source), and some parts are
> proprietary (thos parts are only in .o object format). So you can
> conceivably rebuild the boot loader with the source and objects provided.
Ah, yes... now I recall why this dosn't violate the GPL on the Linux
bootloader: because the BeOS kernel isn't becoming a part of the bootloader
-- but rather data for it. The kernel is data irregardless of the fact that
it is in the form of .o files tacked on to the end (assumption, don't know
anything about Be's architecture) because it dosn't call any functions
within the kernel; it just does a blind JMP to the beginning of the kernel.
IIRC,
-=- James Mastros
--
First they came for the fourth amendment, but I said nothing because I
wasn't a drug dealer. Then they came for the sixth amendment, but I kept
quiet because I wasn't guilty. Finally they came for the first amendment,
and by then it was too late to say anything at all."
-=- Nancy Lebowitz
cat /dev/urandom|james --insane=yes > http://www.rtweb.net/theorb/
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