Misconceptions About the GPL · Slashdot Mirror

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Wednesday August 30, 2006 @04:53AM from the like-a-virus dept.

lisah writes "Misconceptions about the widely used GNU General Public License (GPL) continue to plague the free software user community and, according to the ITManagersJournal, 'the confusion is frequently based on misreadings, rumors, secondhand accounts, and what is convenient to believe.' In order to clarify some of the more common misunderstandings about the GPL, Bruce Byfield consulted with three experts: attorney Richard Fontana, one of the main drafters of the third version of the license; Harald Welte of the GPL-Violations project; and David Turner who is assisting with revisions of the license. Together, they help clarify the distributor's role in providing source code to customers, whether GPL is viral or unenforceable, and why some misunderstandings are really rooted in varied interpretations of the law." ITMJ and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

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The GPL by zo1dberg · 2006-08-30 05:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Basically it says something like "Your sourcecode is to be available, penguins are to be worshipped, but are to be referred to as GNU/Penguins, and men are not to shave". If you don't care about all that, you can skip to the end, which is a good part and has Marvin in it.