Re: linux gpl question
On Friday 26 April 2002 01:18, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu> writes:
>
> > No, he doesn't have to do anything at all with his patches. They aren't
> > the FSF's to define the license for. For ONLY the work he authored or
> > has the rights of authorship in, he may do whatever he wishes with it.
>
> However, his patches are patches *of Linux*, and so if he distributes
> the patched Linux, he is required to distribute the full source,
> because Linux is copyable only under the terms of the GPL and that's
> what the GPL requires. If he doesn't like that, his only option is to
> refrain from copying the Linux binaries at all.
Actually he can copy all he wants without complying with the GPL.
It would take a court to actually force him to comply with the license and/or
pay for violating the license (and that would take a lawsuit brought by the
copyright holders). He still has some rights to his derivative work, they
aren't completely held by the original authors, so it would be a mistake
to treat the derivative work as GPL'ed and copy it before the court forced
license compliance (assuming it chose to).
Lynn
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