Re: Acknowledgment clause in GPL code?
Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso wrote:
> I'm curious as to the status of the following code for solving a
> Rubik's cube:
>
> http://www.wrongway.org/work/solver.tar.gz
>
> The readme.txt file states
>
> This program is released under the GNU General Public License.
> It may be modified and/or redistributed under the terms of said
> license. The creator is not responsible for damages occuring
> because of this program. IT MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OR MODIFIED
> WITHOUT EXPLICIT CREDIT GIVEN TO THE AUTHOR.
>
> so what does that mean?
It means the author wants it to be clearly understood that GPL != Public
Domain.
This is not a license, it's a license grant statement. It's like a cover
letter. It's like that disclaimer you are supposed to put at the top of
every source file to indicate that the GPL license applies.
It *is* a less-than-perfectly-written grant statement, primarily because
it doesn't mention the version of the license. But given that GPLv2 has
been the *ONLY* significant version of the GPL for over a decade, it's
pretty obvious that that is the one which was meant.
That the wording is less than legally perfect is the reason why the
author has chosen to reference an existing license instead of trying to
write a new one himself.
That people can find so much fault with this and go on about "additional
restrictions" is absurd. The intent is exceedingly clear. I can
understand the motivation for suggesting an improved statement to the
author, mentioning that it would be better to add the version number to
the license reference and that the word "ORIGINAL" should probably be
inserted before the word "AUTHOR". But that's like correcting spelling
and grammar: it might be useful, but did you *really* not understand
what was being said?
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock (hancock@AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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