Re: The legality of cdrecord
On Thu, Nov 08, 2007 at 01:21:25PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> On 11/8/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> > "John Halton" <johnhalton@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > As has been said already, the GPL does allow non-GPL code to
> > > appear in GPL projects, but it requires that code then to be
> > > distributed under the GPL. But to do so may infringe the licence
> > > for that non-GPL code.
> >
> > This is a false claim! The GPL does not require to change the
> > license of such other code and any lawyer would laugh on you as
> > this would be illegal.
To clarify: it's not that the GPL requires you to "change the licence"
of other code. It is that the GPL requires certain code (derivative
works, build scripts necessary to compile the software) to be licensed
under the GPL.
If you are not the author of that code then you have to then consider
whether you have the right to license that code under the GPL. In the
case of CDDL-licensed code, the answer is "no", because the CDDL
requires the code to be licensed under the CDDL, which contains
restrictions that are then incompatible with the GPL.
Of course, that still leaves the question of whether the CDDL code is
being used in such a way that the GPL would require it to be licensed
under the GPL. I'm not in a position to comment on that either way,
but the majority consensus seems to be "yes".
John
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