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Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use



This not legal advice. No lawyer-client relationship is established. etc
etc.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb@becket.net>
To: "none" <chloehoffman@hotmail.com>
Cc: <debian-legal@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use


> "none" <chloehoffman@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > I have trouble seeing how the separate distribution of A and B and then
the
> > end-user combining them is infringement by either the distributor or the
> > end-user. Assuming that neither A nor B includes code from each other,
then
> > A is not a derivative work of B nor is B a derivative work of A and so
they
> > are not derivative works distributed under the GPL which would trigger
the
> > incompatibility issue for the distributor.
>
> It sounds like your goal is to subvert the GPL, in which case you are
> not our friend.  If your goal is to try and figure out ways that bad
> people might subvert the GPL, so that the FSF can fix them, then you
> should bring such issues up in private with the FSF.  Bringing them up
> in public, on a list where they will never reach the relevant people,
> serves only to help those people who want to subvert the GPL.
>

I think you are very wrong about this assumption. I am not trying to
"subvert" the GPL. I think it is a very interesting license model that is
suitable for many.
If you will, my query/analysis has important implications to Debian and to
any other packagers. I am simply raising the issue that distributing A and B
separately (whether that be a GPL or a non-GPL library or any other code),
and not as a derived work, does not necessarily make you an infringer. This
is important because there shouldn't be uncertainty about how things can be
packaged. One objective of this list I believe is to determine what code can
be packaged together. I am simply exploring the issue to attempt to clarify
it. How does a packager know what he/she is doing with GPL and non-GPL code
"subverts" the goal of the GPL or not?

> However, regardless of your motives, this discussion isn't appropriate
> for debian-legal.
>
> Thomas
>
>
>



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