Re: Heart of the debate
I'm going to take the slightly unusual approach of replying to your comment in
two parts.
On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2000 at 10:30:04AM +1100, Don Sanders wrote:
> > Finally interpreting the phrase "the complete source code must be
> > distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2" to mean "holding the
> > value of the Program defined in Section 0 constant the complete source
> > code must be distributed under the terms of Section 1 and 2" as I and
> > I think Andreas does makes good sense.
>
> Except that the QPL does not grant all the rights necessary to
> distribute under the terms of Section 2 -- it places some restrictions
> on modification and redistribution. I don't see how you can distribute
> the complete source code under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 if you're
> not legally allowed to do so.
Briefly because I have held the definition of the Program constant so that QT
is (still) not part of the Program.
This is important so let me explain in detail.
First some context, I'm determining whether one can apply the GPL to a work. I
can try to apply the GPL to any work at all, it's my choice. In this specific
case I want to determine if I can apply the GPL to all the files in a particular
kdepackage/application directory (I call this work the KDE application,
I'm assuming I wrote all the stuff in these files and own the copyright on
them, I also assume this KDE application uses QT). Section 0 of the GPL
defines the Program to be this work.
There seems to be general agreement that using this definition of the Program
one can comply with sections 1 and 2 of the GPL.
Now I can distribute the complete source code to the Program (which
includes QT) under the terms of section 1 and 2 of the GPL as *I hold the
definition of the Program constant, so that QT is (still) not part of the
Program*, thus I still own the copyright to all of the Program and thus I can
still license my work under the terms of section 1 and 2.
When distributing the complete source code under the terms of sections 1
and 2 any part of the complete source code that is not part of the Program (or
the Program's source code under Section 1++) is irrelevant.
Now you might say this is wrong as distributing the complete source code under
the terms of Section 1 and 2 requires applying terms of the GPL to the complete
source code (that is treating the complete source code to be the Program) but I
don't believe this as (amongst other things) a copyright lawyer told me this is
an incorrect interpretation of the phrase "the complete source code must be
distributed under the terms of Section 1 and 2".
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.
BFN,
Don.
++source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it, which means in my specific case all the files in the
kdepackage/kdeapplication directory, which is in my specific case is the
Program.
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