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License Cocktail With GPL In Doom

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-is-gonna-get-tricky dept.

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?"

3 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Is the GPL actually restrictive? by The+Dodger · · Score: 4

    [..]some source ports use up to 3 different licenses, among them the GPL. So doesn't this make it GPL'd?

    This doesn't sound right to me. If someone takes two pieces of code, one GPL and one which isn't GPL (but is open source), and sticks them together into one program, the GPL can't infect the other code, no matter what the GPL itself says.

    What's happening in that situation, is the the person who used both sets of code in the one program would be guilty of violating at least the GPL, and possibly both licences.

    In my opinion, actually, this "feature" of the GPL (i.e. it's incompatibility with other licences, due to it's viral nature) goes against the spirit of the free software/open source movement. It's supposed to liberate us from having to worry about software licensing and so on, rather than restricting what we can do with it.

    It seems to me sometimes that people regard the GPL as being something holy and untouchable, but I believe that given the way in which the economy is changing and so on, such things should be critically reviewed on a regular basis.


    D.

  2. This is exactly why... by FascDot+Killed+My+Pr · · Score: 4

    ...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"?
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  3. No, It doesn't make it GPL'ed by Lita+Juarez · · Score: 5
    Section 4 of the GPL states that "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License". 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.

    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.