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Derivative Works And Open Source

Posted by timothy on from the deriving-force dept.

marvin826 writes " Larry Rosen has a nice article in the current issue of the Linux Journal about the legal interpretation of derivative works. Seems there are two camps in the world in terms of using open-source libraries, such as GPL licensed libraries, in proprietary software. Read this article and see which camp you are in! Having people working full-time on proprietary software, using open-source libraries, can only help the open-source software get better? "

2 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Derviative by trentfoley · · Score: 0, Troll

    Derviative!! Gah! I know its only two characters transposed, but it sounds so messed up. Remember, always, no wait, never.... no, always click on the Preview button first (especially editors)

  2. Re:This article is not legal advice by moncyb · · Score: 1, Troll

    Even the nutjobs at the FSF don't make glibc GPL. They know better. They talk about how bad the LGPL is, but they continue to use it.

    Go have a look at the gnu.org site. LGPL is an intermediate step in their plan for world dominance. Whenever they get their Hurd system operational, they plan to change all their libraries to GPL--including libc.

    Besides Linux, no major useful software for developers is GPL only. Apache, X, GTK+, Qt (dual licensed).

    Is Linux "GPL only"? If you're running it, look in /usr/src/linux/COPYING (the license for Linux). Mr. Torvalds put in a few exceptions to the GPL.