Re: xchat is now shareware in windoze

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com> writes:

> On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> It is true that Debian's license to the original works persists.
>> But we won't have a license to the derivative work, because the
>> upstream author didn't have the right to prepare that work, much
>> less license it.
>
> Assuming the upstream author has properly licensed upstream's
> contributions under the GPL, we can distribute those contributions so
> long as we comply with the terms of the GPL. [There is an argument
> that the upstream author can't actually distribute upstream's
> contributions under the GPL, but I'd suggest that even if this is the
> case, if we can comply with the GPL, we should be able to distribute
> it ourselves.]
>
> The other licenses that are granted under GPL §6 come directly from
> the original licensor, not via the intermediate(s) (in this case,
> upstream.) Thus, we have valid GPL licenses for all parts of the
> derivative work.

If it were a compilation, that would be fine.  But in many cases --
including this one, I think -- it's not.  We have a license to the
original work from the original author, and to the derivative work
from the upstream.  But the original author also has a copyright on
the derivative work, and we have no license to it from him.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu