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License Cocktail With GPL In Doom
Rob wrote in to say: "There is an interesting news item on Doomworld about all the different licenses under which the sourceports of Doom are distributed -- at once! According to this article, some source ports use up to three different licenses, among them the GPL. So doesn't this make it GPL'd? But what about the other licenses? Do the authors have to stick to a single license and dispose of code which is covered by another license?"
The copyright holders are under no obligation to enfoce the GPL. Seriously, which of the Doom software authors is going to sue?
The GPL in this respect tends to be used the way that large corporations use patants. Basically, everyone treads on everyone else's feet, and if one calls in the lawyers, so do all the others. Think about the situation rather than just stating what the text says. Also bear in mind that the in-court strength of the GPL has yet to be properly tested.
John
John_Chalisque
your way of thinking about it will avoid conflicts between licenses, but it doesn't cover the whole space of possibilities. For example, BSD licensed code may be incorporated into a GPL'ed project and that formerly BSD'ed code may be released under a GPL license. This is not a problem to the proponents of the BSD license because they don't believe in restricting what licensees can do. The BSD way of thinking is, "it's allowed, that makes it OK."
Heres an interesting question.
If linking a program to a library makes it a derivative work, then does linking a web page to another make it one?
The most obvious answer is no, but then is linking making a derivative work, or isn't it?
And what defines 'integral system libraries'.
Anything that is commonly available on the target platform would be considered 'integral'.
ie: Sun libc... sun socket library...
Or Mandrake QT (on mandrake)
Or... get the picture? non-gpl librraries are fine as long as they are generally available on the author's desired target. So if he is wrigint software and saying 'this is for Mandrake 7.1' then the fact that non-gpl libraries are required to make it work under debian is moot.. that's not what he's distributing.
.. a lot of people arguing about what is best,
the BSD or GPL -license.
The truth, I feel, is that neither is better.
You use it for different purposes.
I resent all arguments that the GPL is viral,
or like a "straightjacket".
If you don't like the license, tough luck.
You use the BSD license if:
You want everyone to have an almost unlimited
amount of freedom when using your code.
This includes yourself.
It might suit you if you want to release binary-only products, while still being able to
use other peoples modifications.
The drawback is that others can just grab your
code, and release binary-only products as well.
Think about Windows 2000 containing large amounts
of BSD-code.
You use the GPL license if:
You want the software to be open, period!
You don't want anyone to include it in their closed-source projects.
If they modifiy it, they should damn well give
something back.
The drawback is that you yourself, won't be able
to use the contributions from others in a closed-source project.
Some people (like myself) want to make sure that
noone modifies and releases something based on
my code, without giving anything back.
That is the whole POINT behind the GPL.
If you feel it is like a straightjacket, don't use my code. It is very simple, actually.
and they can even go make a *billion* dollars off it without showing me a red cent, or even telling me.
Versus the GPL which will show you a red cent and obligates people to inform you of anything?
I've got news for you... RedHat, VA etc have already made a billion dollars, and had no obligation to show anyone else jack.
The only difference between the GPL and BSD is that the BSD has more freedom to the recipient. There is no economic advantage to the creator either way.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Uh.. no..
we're talking, unless I'm mistaken, about 3 different releases of the doom source under 3 different licenses.... not half under one, and half under another..
Everyone here is saying "you can't do this or that with GPL'd software."
As I understand it, the GPL does have a way for you to do any of these things: Ask the author.
Under the GPL (IIRC), the author retains full rights to amend the licencing, or grant a specific licence to someone.
If you want to include some GPL code in a non-GPL project, write a nice letter to the author, asking permission. If the author agrees with your reasons for your request, and approves of the licence you plan to use, there's every possibility he'll release it to you, say under the licence you want to use.
Of course, if the author doesn't agree, it's a fair bet that you're wanting to do something that that the author was specifically trying to stop you doing anyway when he put it into GPL....
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
According to this article, some source ports use up to three different licenses, among them the GPL. So doesn't this make it GPL'd? But what about the other licenses? Do the authors have to stick to a single license and dispose of code which is covered by another license?
Congratulations Rob, you've managed to figure out RMS's most nagging anti-(insert commercial linux dist here) arguments.
Nicely put, too -- maybe the "post first, read laters" around here will start to get it too.
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Using the same word doesn't make them equivalent.
A hyperlink is just an address, the current document is still there whether the linked one exists or not. A statically linked program contains everything it's linked to. In the case of dynamic linking, the linked material must be present or the program won't run at all.
This already exists in
Open Sources
Voices from the Open Source Revolution
Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman & Mark Stone
1st Edition January 1999
1-56592-582-3, Order Number: 5823
280 pages, $24.95
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/
In either the chapter
The Open Source Definition
Bruce Perens
or in
Freeing the Source: The Story of Mozilla
Jim Hamerly and Tom Paquin with Susan Walton
I have tried to find the answer to this question before, but to no avail. What happens if you have a program that is made up of 5 libraries. In order to fully run the program, you need all 5. They use each other's header files and binaries. I GPL 2/5. Is this legal? What happens when I use a library, such as GnuPG, in a commercial non-GPL app?
> The only way around this (that I can see) would be to convince the author of the GPL'ed ...
;-)
Or _be_ the author
> I would prefer to see more people releasing their code under the BSD license.
Me too. Although for newcomers to "free" licenses, I would reccomend the GPL at first if they are unsure, since if you later decide i'ts not right for you, you can re-release as BSD. You cannot however do it the other way around.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
...human speech is no good as input to a computer.
There are a lot of confused people out there. Let's draw some distinctions.
1) The Perl Example: Perl is distributed under two licenses, the GPL and the "Artistic License". The ENTIRETY of Perl is under BOTH of these licenses.
2) The Ghostscript) Example: Ghostscript is distributed under two licenses, the GPL (IIRC) and a commercial one. However, any given copy of ghostscript is only covered under ONE license. The newest version is commercial, all previous versions are GPL'd. So say the newest version is 10.3. If I get 10.3 from them, I have a commercial license. But if I get 10.2 from them, it is GPL'd.
3) The I Can't Think Of One Example: There are packages out there (and unfortunately I can't think of one right now) where it is released under different licenses depending on, for instance, the platform you are going to run on. So the Linux version is GPL'd but the Windows version is commercial. This is similar to the Ghostscript Example--only one license applies to each copy of the software.
Notice that none of these examples are like hypothetical software S: S is a package containing 100 source files. 50 of the source files are GPL'd, 25 of them are BSD'd and 25 of them are commercially licensed. AFAIK, the GPL doesn't allow this. My interpretation of this situation is that the 50 files would be considered a "work" and the full 100 would be a "derivative"--so the sets of 25 would have to be GPL'd as well.
All that said, what does it mean exactly, that "Doom is released under multiple licenses"?
--
Compaq dropping MAILWorks?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
You can't mix GPL'd code with non-GPL'd code in the same compile and/or link. You can't even dynamically link non-GPL'd code to GPL'd code (though you can to LGPL'd). Of course, there's this whole fuzzy area about what is "mere aggregation" and what is linking, like plug-ins, pipes, and running one program in another. While there are common interpretations (pipes, running = okay, plug-ins = controversial, but probably okay), I think it's very open to argument in a court of law.
Example: a proprietary program, the binary of which contains a compressed archive of a GPL'd program binary. When run, it extracts the GPL'd binary to a temporary directory, runs it, uses the results, and then gets rid of the extracted binary.
GPL violation? I'm stumped.
John Carmack changed the license that Doom is under on Oct 3, 1999 from the original Doom license to the GPL. IMO, that makes Doom GPL and the old license null and void. All of this is coming out, though, due to csDoom which is using the Doom source but is not releasing their sources. http://csdoom.sourceforge.com.
Spot on. Also, this is more of an issue here in the UK because so few of us have high speed access. The cover CD's on magazine's (such as Linux Format) are a far more valuable resource than in the US.
- The original Doom release, under the original license.
- Heretic and Hexen, under the Activision license.
That's two, which is enough to cause havoc. Incidentally, ZDoom has a checkered history regarding the inclusion of other code - in one particularly nasty incident, Lee Killough (primarily responsible for Boom, the foundation of most ports including ZDoom) saw code from his MBF port (which he later did, independantly of TeamTNT although based upon Boom) that was not credited.I think the vast majority concerned (and I'm talking about the Doom community here) agree that the code in ZDoom is a real mess when it comes to licensing and attributing sources.
Actually, wouldn't it depend on whether Stephen had the GPL virus when Lucy was concieved? If his DNA was Proprietary at her conception, then her DNA should be Propriatry too, regardless of Stephen's current License state. What about Catherine's DNA? Does Lucy automatically inherit Cross-Licensing Rights from both parents? What if Catherine's DNA is under the BSD license? And does Lucy have to sign an NDA when she reaches legal age, or does she automatically receive her own License? Which license? Does she get to choose her own? Since her DNA is unique (though a Derivate Work of both parents') does she retain an Exclusive License? Is it Transferrable? Is it Revokable? Inquiring minds want to know.
--Jim
Not fraud at all. The GPL is just a "General Public License". In fact, the FSF encourages people to use the fully qualified term "GNU GPL" to avoid this exact problem.
Now, if somebody released something under a modified GPL and called it the "GNU GPL", I'd be pretty wary.
Of course, IANAL.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
It has nothing to do with whether the code is part of the OS or not.
As I understand it, there's nothing in the GPL that prevents the GPL'd program from linking against proprietary libraries. The libraries are not considered a derivative work. However, if a closed-source program links against GPL'd code, such as a GPL'd library (not LGPL'd), that is illegal. The restrictions are one-way.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
Larry Wall tells an amusing story of how he "hacked the licesnse war" by distributing Perl under the GPL and the Artistic License at the same time. Now if only I could remember the URL...
Charles Miller
--
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
Or I might port a GPL product to a new platform and release it under a commercial licence. And decide that retroactively, all copies of, say, gcc, are covered by this. I realise this is a simplification, yes. But it's in effect what you're hinting at (being CmdrTaco). And that's A Bad Thing(TM), if it is the Sacred Object Known As The GPL. :)
Freedom is fine. Proprietarisation is fine. I don't think any licence should be able to 'infect' anothers. Especially not retroactively.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
As long as it's really GPL and not LGPL it should make the game free :*)
I'd have to say....... who cares? No one's making money off of the code any more, the game is still fun, people can use it. Make it all GPL, or partially GPL, or not GPL at all. People will still use it, have some fun, and perhaps laugh at the graphics a little. Aren't licenses the biggest pain?!
Remember the days when nobody cared about "licenses" and 'GPL' and other programming related politics? I miss those days.
Maybe. But the assumption in your statement is that the first modification was made was under the GPL. Not another licence, and the GPL following it...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Am I correct?
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
You'd think they'd check the licences before they decided to include the code... I suppose that is too much to ask for. If all three licences conflict, I think there are only a few options. The project could be torn apart and completely scrapped, or a court battle could emerge over the terms of the licenses. Who knows, this could turn into the court case that challenges the GPL.
Dave
but the GPL is clear. If someone modified the GPL'd Doom and someone else took these change and put them in a non-GPL'd Doom thi is a violation of the GPL and the guy that write this code can sue. I am not talking of Carmack here, given that Doom itself was released under many licenses but of the hypothetical guy that would havemodified Doom under the GPL.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
A license is something that declares the rights of whoever receives the release. Thus, if some code merely sits on my harddrive, there is no concept of it being "GPL'd".
Likewise, I could release it separately under 3 different licenses. Of course, only 1 license applies to you when you download it... it's just a matter of determining which license you've selected (for example, different links, or different tarballs).
Now technically speaking, since Carmack released the Doom source code into the public domain (forgive me if I'm wrong about that), then I can take the code, burn it onto a CD, and release it under whatever license I like -- and it's perfectly legal. There aren't any "conflicting licenses", since public domain releases are (by definition) unlicensed.
I wish people would stop saying "I want you to GPL ThisSoftware", or "is that software GPL'd?". You should be saying things like "that software has been released under the GPL".
This is correct, and it is because the GPL is, by design, meant to be viral. Stallman wanted the GPL to be this way. That is why the LGPL was created-- so that there is a choice of non-viral license for entities that wanted to make a non-GPL'd product that lionks to the open source C library from the FSF.
Thus, the blood group analogy is well-taken.
But how do you define "public domain"? The point of licences is to unambiguously tell people what they can and cannot do with the software. The phrase "public domain" may be interpreted in different ways by different people, therefore some form of licensing is necessary to clarify the situation. The pre-prepared BSD and GPL licenses provide a simple way for people to put a license with their code.
This is a point I've wondered about concerning the GPL... Where is the threshold? If I have a large commercial app and add 20 lines of GPL'd code (let's say not even an entire function) then there is no way that anyone can reasonably expect that I then just give away the whole app under GPL. If I start with, say, Doom under GPL and add 20 lines then I would expect that I am ethically obligated to give my work, my intellectual product, away. Now you can move those proportions closer together and argue either way. Is there a consensus on this issue.
I came across this the other day when I was trying to differentiate between some of the licenses. It's not what you mention but it is definitely helpful.
------
IanO
------
Objects in Mirror are Losing!
It's not *a* general public license, it's *THE* General Public License, and with the TLA "GPL" it's even more clear what is meant. One cannot, I would expect, sell an x86 CPU in a SPARC box merely because the x86 is (somewhat) scalable and is a processor architecture. Of course, neither of us are lawyers (thank god), so I guess our speculatiopns aren't worth much.
You're a bit confused here about how copyrights work. You're assuming that everything is public domain by default, which is simply wrong. Everything is copyrighted by default. If you don't read a license that lets you copy it, such as the GPL, you have no right to copy it at all. That's how the GPL is different from shrink-wrap licenses, because the GPL gives you more rights instead of taking them away.
--
No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Uhm, no, GPL'd programs can link against any libraries that allow it. It's non-GPL programs that can't link against GPL libraries.
Comments along the lines of "who cares, it's old code, no-one's making any money on it anymore" are both illegal and unfair to the owner of the code.
Actually, such comments are not inherently illegal. In fact, assuming for a minute that you live in the United States, such comments are expressly LEGAL under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
-----
That's not what I meant.
When someone says "in this case, GPL infects this other thing" that means "in this case, you must place this other thing under the GPL, or you are in violation of the GPL, and therefor have no permission to redistribute." If some part is under another such licence (like X or Berk.), that means you must remove one or the other, or you've lost the licence to redistribute and you're violating copyright.
If you make and distribute a proprietary product that links in GPL'd code, it's a copyright violation, pure and simple.
Clauses insterted into it don't "try to make code you link 'become' GPL", they deny you that use of the code unless you GPL the code you link.
that's what it means, as i understood it. if programmer A links GPL code with code that's under an incompatible license, he/she is the one at fault, and he isn't even allowed to distribute the resultant work, as he has certainly violated one of the code licences...
Although for newcomers to "free" licenses, I would reccomend the GPL at first if they are unsure, since if you later decide i'ts not right for you, you can re-release as BSD. You cannot however do it the other way around.
Why do people have such a hard time grasping this? That's not true! If you own the code and you release it as GPL, you can still go back and rerelease it under a completely different license (commercial closed-source, even) The one thing you can't do is revoke all the other GPL'ed versions out there - they are out for good. But you can prevent new versions from being released.
Basically, if you own the code, you can keep releasing it under different licenses any way you choose.
--
I've seen conflicting arguments here, but I have a case where I'm considering using GPL code in a PHP application, and I'm wondering how it may affect me.
I want to use GPL code in a closed-source application.. I do not want to open up the source to the rest of my project, but have no problems with giving credit to the GPL author's code where it appears on the page. I'm getting the impression though that this would violate the GPL, and I would be forced either to a) open up my code under GPL or b) stop using the GPL code. Is this correct?
Thanks,
BilldaCat
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Oh maybe they've changed it back. I remember reading the license for 2.something, and it was GPL+exceptions, this was pointed out to me by a guy at Yggdrasil. They might have changed their mind since then, but I remember RMS making a comment about this not so long ago.
If I have a large commercial app and add 20 lines of GPL'd code (let's say not even an entire function) then there is no way that anyone can reasonably expect that I then just give away the whole app under GPL.
No, but it is reasonable to expect you to remove the GPL'ed code, which you are using in a way which goes against the wishes of the author, and rewrite those 20 lines yourself.
--
There's no violation there at all. Since Rob originally wrote the code, he gets to choose the license it's released under, and his license of choice was "GPL with an extra you-must-link-to-slashdot condition". What that line (clause 6 in the GPL) says is that if you recevied a work licensed under the GPL, then you may not add additional restrictions. That's not the case here. No one has ever received the slash code under the vanilla GPL. Interestingly, that makes the slash licence incompatible with the GPL. Mixing slash code with code licensed under the vanilla GPL would be in violation of one of the licenses (which one would depend on whether you insisted on the extra clause or not).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Enjoy.
-----
Another recon report from the Troll Patrol.
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
I would think the diffrent liccenses don't work together.
Unless the liccenses were designed to co-exist you have a legal nightmare.
Chances are quite good the liccens coctail is simply illegal and you have open source legalistic piracy on your hands.
I don't actually exist.
Specifically, he says that the LGPL should be used when a library is meant to compete with a commercial library, so that commercial software vendors can stop using the commercial library without changing their licenses... On the other hand, when a library provides unique functionality that cannot be gotten through another library, the GPL should be used with the hope that people who need that functionality will release their software under the GPL.
Thus, GNU libc, which competes with other libc's, is GPL. And GNU Readline, which among libraries is fairly unique in functionality, and mainly competes with application-specific implementations of the same functionality, is GPL.
Oh I see, you're absolutely right. But "marche ouverte" (applicable to intellectual as well as physical property) would ensure that if the programmer did then distribute the application, then future users would not have their rights under the original licence compromised and (so long as they could trace back ownership to the original violation, and remained reasonably and non-recklessly unaware of the violation) could treat the GPL elements as if they were non-GPL. It's the one loophole in GPL, and it has to be there, because the only way to close it would be to bring in legal concepts more restrictive and less robust than simple copyright, which Stallman & LEssig considered a nondesideratum.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
It is similar to your example about Perl. :-(
Doom was originally licensed under a rather restrictive license (no commercial use, etc). Later, id Software re-released the (same) source under the GPL. Many Doom "port" authors switched to the GPL at that point. At least one (ZDoom) did not. Throw in a little Heretic/Hexen and Quake, and you can see where a license conflict comes in.
You probably meant the glibc is released under the LGPL. Actually, it's not anymore. It's under the GPL with exceptions, the exception being that you can use glibc in proprietary software ONLY if they are compiled with gcc. I guess this was changed in order to annoy non free compiler vendors who were "pirating" glibc.
Maybe Mr. Carmack should be commenting on this matter...
John, you out there?
Ok try this as a mesure and I think you start to see the picure....
If your using commertally liccensed code would it be ok....
The GPL gives pritty much identical limits on using GPL code in a commertal product that commertal code gives for using in ANY product.
Now as far as "including libarys" you shouldn't. The libarys should be downloaded and installed seprately there should be no need to include them in your pacage.
But placing GPL code in your code then you have an issue.
It's as much theft to put GPL code in a closed source product as it is to use code you paid a liccens fee for in a free product.
Basicly a programmer should not be asked to pay for his own code and any programmer who codes for a living should be paid for the use of his code. It should never be in a free product and it should never be in someone elses commertal product.
The GPL basicly says "Don't steal from me" the same basic idea holds for all commertal liccenses.
The key diffrence is the GPL programmer isn't making a living off his code....
But then.. with todays inovative busness modles... maybe.. just maybe... he is making money...
By banner ads on the download page... or the product as a demo of the coders skill saying "This is my skill... hire me for your specalised e-commerce needs".
Whatever is being done...
Code made free should stay free and code that is not free is not free...
Changing this is theft
I don't actually exist.
http://mewse.alkali.org/licenses/ was just updated with Carmack's response. He confirms that the old license was not revoked.
Except that the strait-jacket goes both ways, according to some advocates.
Some KDE developers release GPL code, and Debian refuses to distribute it, because they're claiming to be unable to. Here, the copyright holder is saying "Here, take it" and the recipient is refusing.
That's the kind of madness that makes some people hate the GPL.
Such a matrix could be useful, except that not everyone reads the licenses the same way.
Many licenses, like the GPL and Artistic licenses, are vague.
The only way to be sure of what you're doing, when you allow people to distribute your software with a certain license, or when you accept a license from someone else, is to actually READ the license involved. ALL of it. And if you're not sure, get a lawyer.
A license is a contract. The words are what get enforced, in the end.
The trick is, in the words of the GPL:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
So, if you didn't read the license, then you had no right to redistribute the software, with or without modifications. Copyright law forbids you to, without getting permission.
It's arguably fraud to call it "GPL" if it's not actually the GPL license as released by FSF. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's fraud, but I didn't want to make a definitive statement on the matter because I'm not a lawyer (see how I worked that in without saying ANAL? :)).
If Doom had been released under the GPL from the start, there would have been far fewer problems. As things stand now, some Doom engines are GPL'd, others are still under the old educational-only license. Throw in the Activision license (which would be a joke if it didn't hurt so much), and there is a lot of confusion.
An interesting related story.. Doom engines under the old Doom source license are of course not open-source, yet the csdoom project is hosted on sourceforge (http://csdoom.sourceforge.net/). After some weeks of complaining we've got the author to release the code, but it's still not appropriate content for sourceforge IMHO. I've emailed the sourceforge guys to no avail though... Comments?
> Therefore, incorporating GPL'ed code into something which is non-GPL'ed invalidates the license on the GPL'ed code. Legally, the GPL'ed code must be removed.
or the whole thing must be released under the GPL. Unfortunately, you can only change the license on code if you're the copyright owner...
The term Public Domain has a very specific legal meaning. It means that the work is "owned" by the public and has no restrictions what-so-ever on it's use no matter what that use may be. If some software is public domain you can copy it, modify it, sell it, incorporate it into one of your own works, etc.
RMS doesn't "discourage using the LGPL for libraries", at least not for all libraries... If you see the FSF page, RMS lists under which exact situations he considers the use of the LGPL wise.
I was being brief, simply to illustrate a point - what happens when you link a GPL library to non-GPL code.
There seems to be an awful lot of talk about using some code that is GPL'd in a new product. What's teh story with using a GPL'd library in a product that you don't want to GPL? Would the new product have to be GPL'd or could you release the new code under any licence you felt like, but keep the library GPL'd???
Umph, will people ever understand once for all that
I surely want the freedom of not to be injured by my neighbour. This actually limits my neighbour's freedom to injure me. Now are you telling that for the sake of my neighbour's freedom I should allow him to injure me?
Let's get straight:
People choosing GPL are choosing GPL because they don't want their code to be distributed being part of proprietary code, or to be distributed with proprietary parts. Point.
People choosing BSD are choosing BSD because they want their code to be used by as much as people as possible, regardless if it's used in/with proprietary code or not. Point.
Choose accordingly to your wishes for your code. Other's people code is not yours.
There has not been, according to the article, a Doom port with code from all three licenses. It was a hypothetical situation that could happen. Nothing in the article abour it actually happening yet. BTW, what happened with that whole Quake GPL violation Carmack was so pissed about?
If however you release it as BSD first, but then realize that company X has been using your code in their product without releasing the source (as they would be perfectly entitled to do) but you then realise that you don't like that you are stuck. Yes, you can re-release it as GPL, but thats hardly going to stop company X now they have the source under the BSD license, is it?
Ahhh, ok, thanks for clarifying. Yes, you're correct. Sorry I jumped the gun, it just that lots of people always bitch about the GPL saying that it'll take away your freedom rather than keeping other people from stealing it. I stand corrected.
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Of course, there is a line in the GPL which keeps you from being able to attach any extra restrictions to the license. I've known of a few places, Slashdot being one of them, who have tried to violate that, probably unknowingly. For instance, take a look at the code page for Slashdot, and notice where Rob says you have to link back to Slashdot. I'm sure that was an honest mistake on his part, and if you take a look at the license on Slashcode, you'll see that the restriction isn't included there.
The point is that I think dragging licenses together is adding extra restrictions to the GPL, something that is clearly forbidden in it's body.
Brad Johnson
--We are the Music Makers, and we
are the Dreamers of Dreams
Brad Johnson
I think one very important license is missing!
:)
-----------------------
--- License to kill ---
-----------------------
And driving license would be nice too, if they
are ever going to get vehicles in that game, which
would be VERY nice.
... you can license it under as many licenses as you like (even exclusionary ones). If it's not your code you can only re-license if the original license allows you to do it. Comments along the lines of "who cares, it's old code, no-one's making any money on it anymore" are both illegal and unfair to the owner of the code.
This package has two license options
1 - GPL, QPL, NPL, LGPL Shaken
2 - GPL, QPL, NPL, LGPL Stirred
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I posted this at 16:32 BST. You posted this at 17:48, and you neglected to include a link. Are you a fucking idiot?
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
Hmmm, the FSF lists its justifications for Free Software and the GPL in particular in an article entitle "Why Software Should Not Be Owned".
If you want the code to remain *yours*, why did you use a license based on the concept that it shouldn't belong to anyone?
As for making the *billions* of dollars, get real! No company has ever made that much money off of any single piece of free software, BSD or otherwise. But if you want to talk about *millions*, why don't you talk to Redhat, et al, who have made millions by not paying its volunteer developers.
There are licenses out there that will allow your code to be free beer for open source developers but require that you get a cut if someone makes a billion or two off of a closed source derivative. Go use one of them instead.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Slashdot's influence is spreading...
Flash to court scene 10 years from now
Judge: Would you like to make the opening address now, Counsel?
Lawyer: Yes! Yes! first comment! Ahha, D sux0rz!
Judge: -1, Offtopic
The very simple reason is that, just saying that something is GPL'd doesn't mean that it is GPL'd. If, for example, you take something with a license which allows the distribution of proprietary modified versions, and then add some GPL'd code to it, the whole thing does not thereby become GPL'd -- because if it did, you would have been in the position of taking away rights which were not yours to take away. In fact, in this case, the only person who would have been breaking the law would be you, for mixing GPL'd and non-GPL'd code.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
The BSD license does not allow you to remove the BSD license. In fact, it's only requirements are that you keep the permission and warranty statements intact!
What you *can* do is to include a BSDd source file as part of a GPLd package. The package as a whole will be under the GPL, but that individual file will still be under the BSD. Take a look at the linux kernel sources and you'll see instances of this. In fact, if it were possible to extract the BSDd code from the MS Kerberos implementation, you would be able to freely redistribute them.
Another thing that can be done is to distribute a binary version of a BSD program. The permissions and warrantees still have to be included in the docs though. Does Microsoft include the BSD license somewhere in it's documentation for Kerberos? I don't know, but if they don't they are violating copyright (something they have frequently done in the past, just ask Sun). This doesn't mean that I can freely redistribute MSKerberos, but it does mean that portions of it can be.
But what you cannot do is to change the license. I don't know who started this myth, but it's wrong.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Your freedom is my prison
My freedom is your prison
That's not freedom, that's nihilism and license. Freedom is not a complete lack of restrictions. Instead, it is the lack of restrictions within your personal domain. Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose because you are exiting your domain and entering mine. Any restrictions I place upon your hitting my nose is not a restriction on your freedom.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I don't have a hard time grasping it. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.
If you are new to "free" licenses and you release they code as GPL, but later decide BSD suits you better, you can release it as BSD and all it well.
Of course, you will have to get rid of all the code that OTHER people added to "your" project in the meantime, since it is now GPLed, and you cannot incorporate it in other licence.
While you could publish your own edition of AAIW, I'm not sure you could list yourself as the author, in the US, under attribution obligations of copyright. You certainly couldn't claim copyright protection for your own verbatim reproduction.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Scope out Kuro5hin
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
I could be wrong, maybe you meant it that way, but your analogy seems a bit flawed. Last I checked, people with AB blood could get A, B, O, and AB blood (I'm ignoring the Rhesus factor), whereas A people can only get A and O. Public domain code is like O; anyone can use it in their own code. Logically, GPL is now A and BSD is now B; both can use public domain code, and that code now effectively becomes tinted. AB is a little trickier; it's possible for code to be both BSD's and GPL'd, but requires some work.
Public domain is what is not copyrighted either because it finished his protection period (which is very rare today thanks to !*&^$$£"^£ such as Sony Bon(n?)o) or because the author decided to relinquish all control over it and put it in the public domain (these are the two main ways).
The point of licences is to unambiguously tell people what they can and cannot do with the software.
I think it should be the role of copyright laws. Most licenses are trying to aviod giving you the rights that the law gives you. Free Softwre license are different in this respect given that you have all the rights that the law gives you and you may get some more if you agree to certain conditions that are more or less restrictive.
The phrase "public domain" may be interpreted in different ways by different people
Yes and no. No, because Pubic domain (;-)) has a well defined definition and because by its nature it doesn't have any interpretation due to the lack of rules but yes because anybody can use it any way they like, including making it proprietary again (the PD version remains but if he makes change to his version these changes are proprietary).
therefore some form of licensing is necessary to clarify the situation.
No, see above. PD tells you to make whatever you f*cking want.
The pre-prepared BSD and GPL licenses provide a simple way for people to put a license with their code.
Given that the only thing the BSD license forces you to do is to keep their copyright on the files and to put the disclaimer you could as well put it in the public domain.
If it was in the public domain then the disclaimer would be unnecessary given that you relinquish the control over the software you cannot be attacked if it doesn't work.
Furthermore I know that even if you sell your copyright you still have the right to be acknowledged as the author of your work. I don't know if you keep this right when putting it in the public domain (although it is likely) but if you do then it would be the same as putting the copyright notice.
You may say, yes, but with the copyright notice I still have the copyright whereas if I put it in DP I lose it. So what? If you put it under the BSD license you lose the control on your copyright anyway, and if it is in the public domain nothing forbid you to take your own DP work and make a proprietary version of it.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Therefore the BSD is a O group that can give blood (code) to A, B and AB but cannot receive from them, while the GPL is an AB group that can receive from O, A and B but cannot give any blood to anybody that isn't AB (GPL) themselves.
This is not a problem to the proponents of the BSD license because they don't believe in restricting what licensees can do. The BSD way of thinking is, "it's allowed, that makes it OK."
Which seems logical for me. If they put it under the BSD license it is becaise they agree that anybody can do anything with their code. If it wasn't ok with them they shouldn't have put it under the BSD license in the first place, no?
In other word, the GPL way of thinking is also "if it's allowed then it's ok", their is just less things that are allowed.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I don't have a hard time grasping it. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.
If you are new to "free" licenses and you release they code as GPL, but later decide BSD suits you better, you can release it as BSD and all it well.
If however you release it as BSD first, but then realize that company X has been using your code in their product without releasing the source (as they would be perfectly entitled to do) but you then realise that you don't like that you are stuck. Yes, you can re-release it as GPL, but thats hardly going to stop company X now they have the source under the BSD license, is it?
All I am saying is that for newcomers, I would recommend the GPL if they are unsure about the differneces as it gives them more control. Once they are up to speed on the licenses they can switch - No harm done. If they give away that control by using BSD (as I would encourage them to do - as long as they understand it) they can't get it back.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Actually.. that linking thing is not quite so absolute.
I could not, for instance, distribute binaries that are linked against non-GPL libraries... unless (and this is a big unless) those libraries are a common, standard part of the OS. And this *is* an important point.
You can use GPL software on a Solaris box, where everything is linked against libc... even though libc is proprietary, closed-source Sun code.
You can also link it against other system-level includes, like the socket library and such, even though they, too, are non-GPL. Why? because.. if you say 'this software is for solaris', then *every* solaris box already has those libraries. they are part of the platform.
Now.. it *could* just be me, but if someone were to, say, write software, specifically for Mandrake, and link it against (never mind current events) QT.. and GPL it.. why can't they? The software is intended for Mandrake, that is the author's intent.. and QT is a standard part of any mandrake installations, therefore the libraries are common to all instances of the target platform. Period.
I think the point is that it, in practice, is easier to make a license for some code "looser" than to make it "stricter". Yes, theoretically you can do it both ways, but if you make it stricter it will be hard to prove that violaters doesn't use the code derived from what you released under the old loose license. So in pratice, the new restrictions will be hard to enforce.
Why has this thread degenerated into GPL bashing session? Some people don't like seeing their code mixed with proprietary software. Deal with it.
Yes. The BSD license. Where others using *my* code are under absolutely no obligation to share their changes, period, and they can even go make a *billion* dollars off it without showing me a red cent, or even telling me.
If that's how you want to release your own code, please do! Don't tell me what to release mine under.
Pardon?
If I am an author, I can re-release under whatever terms I want, whenever I want.
What do you mean, they can't do it the other way around?
Okay. I'm stumped. What's the problem?
That the doom source was released on 3 separate occasions under 3 separate licenses? So what?
What.. do people just get doom source and not read the license, assume it's GPL, and then get mad? That would be rather dumb...
It's not exactly what you asked for, but near the bottom of the page is a matrix of licenses, and above it are pretty good descriptions of them.
http://www.oreilly.com/ catalog/opensources/book/perens.html
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
The only way around this (that I can see) would be to convince the author of the GPL'ed to give you dispensation to release their code under a different license.
The way I see it, software licenses are like blood groups - different blood groups are incompatible and must be kept separate (or else all sorts of Bad Things happen), and the same is true for licences. To avoid trouble, it is better to make sure all code is released under the same licence. The GPL is by far the most restrictive licence ever conceived in this respect, and rather than giving people the freedom to do whatever they wish with the code, it ends up being a straightjacket to restrict their freedom. I would prefer to see more people releasing their code under the BSD license.
The owners of the original source code are free to license it as many different ways as they want - like perl is licensed, for example. The only issue is that if you have one project that is source release A + improvements, and another project that is from source release B + improvements. If the license of A and the license of B aren't compatible, then you will have problems picking up the improvements to A into the B project, and vice versa. But it's not like a new source release retroactively changes the licensing of any prior releases; they stay licensed the way they were originally.
BTW, lxdoom rocks! The atmosphere of Doom, unaffected (some would say enhanced) by the lower-quality textures and lack of polys, is probably the best atmosphere for a FPS that I've played. It could have something to do with the fact that I prefer sprite-based objects to polygonal ones, though. I feel like if I can look at a well-drawn sprite object, even if from only a few perspectives, that's still better than a spiky, unrealistic-looking polygon object. I won't really enjoy polygon-mapped games until they reach the 1000s of polys needed to effectively mimic reality to my eye.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The author/owner can release it under any liscense he wants, including a modified version of the GPL. The idea that you can't modify the GPL is only binding on people who don't own the copyright in question and have to use the software in a manner consistent with its liscense, although it would be a courtesy for all involved not to call it "GPL" if it's really a modified version.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
... the Off-license.
It would be great if someone was to put up a webpage containing a compability matrix on open source licenses. Pick a license from the top and one from the left; a red field means there is a collision (preferably explained below).
A quick introduction the various licenses would also be helpful ofcourse, as would tips on what to do if you have colliding licenses.
I definitely agree about the GPL being designed to accomplish a certain goal, rather than to "eliminate worry about software licensing", but I disagree about your characterization of that goal. The GPL does not only "preserve the right of all users to have the same rights as the original user". The original user had the right to use certain source code. The GPL requires that all users have the right to that same original source code, plus any modifications made to it. This is not "the same rights".
Public domain, or a Berkeley style license, preserve "the same rights". You can still, presumably, download the original code. You can't necessarily download someone else's modifications to that code, but neither could they.
Much of the propoganda around the GPL is "don't close the sources", suggesting that if something isn't GPL, one day you will look and find that it has been turned into a commercial, closed source product, with no trace of the original free version. Not very likely. Even though someone takes a program and makes their own version of it, that doesn't mean that the original is no longer available.
So if i go to ftp.cdrom.com and download a buttload of GNU software, without actually being told that i'm licensing the software through the download of this program i don't have to abide by your license. If the license was issued when you issue tar -xzvf linux-2.3.99.tar.bz2 and i agree to the terms, that is sustainable.
Its like shrink wrap, you approve of the license by opening the package. But if you receive the software without the package then you have therefore broke the restrictions placed by the license.
I personally hope the GPL dissapears with the next fad to hit the market. While free software is nice, i thought the revolution was for free as in beer knowledge, interpretation and expression. How can you evolve when you use GPL? They can only evolve as a whole, and that goes back to the marxist and such remarks about the whole license. The choices and freedoms you give up with the GPL are only held up by a single entity, while other licenses give you and anyone else the freedoms to do as they wish with the software and as a whole the community excels and as an individual you have in your hands full creative rights.
With the GPL, the creative rights are definatly not in the eyes of the beholder.
Posted by timothy on Friday June 16, @09:22AM
From the Pain-in-the-Ass Department
Anonymous Coward rights: "There is a really fucking annoying dog that my neighbors have that barks constantly. How can I be expected to work on any Open Source projects when this dog won't shut the fuck up? I think I should kill it. What would be the best way to go about doing this?" I no have sum bodys buryd in my yard -- lets here your war storys.
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