Slashdot Mirror
When GPL Becomes Almost-GPL — the CSS, Images and JavaScript Loophole
New submitter sobolwolf writes "It has been apparent for some time that many developers (mainly theme designers) are split-licensing PHP-based GPL distributions, releasing proprietary files alongside GPL files with the excuse that CSS, JavaScript and Images are 'immunized' from the GPL because they run in the browser and not on the server. This is almost always done to limit the distribution of the entire release, not just the proprietary items (most extensions will not function in any meaningful way without the accompanying CSS, Images and JavaScript). Some of the more popular PHP-based GPL projects, like WordPress, have gone as far as to apply sanctions to developers distributing split-licensed themes/plugins. Others, such as Joomla, have openly embraced the split-licensed model, even changing their extension directory submission rules to cater specifically to split-licensed distributions. In light of all this, I would like to ask the following question: While it seems to be legal to offer split-licensed GPL distributions, is it in the spirit of the GPL for a project such as Joomla (whose governing body has the motto 'Open Source Matters') to openly embrace such a practice when they can easily require that all CSS, Images and JavaScript be GPL (or GPL-compatible) for extensions that are listed on the Joomla Extensions Directory?"
Lost on the legaleses.
is it in the spirit of the GPL for a project such as Joomla (whose governing body has the motto 'Open Source Matters') to openly embrace such a practice when they can easily require that all CSS, Images and JavaScript be GPL (or GPL-compatible) for extensions that are listed on the Joomla Extensions Directory?"
Yes, it is perfectly within the spirit of the GPL to add exemptions to the license terms. Plenty of GPL projects, even those from the GNU project, have exemptions to the GPL terms such as linking in GPLed libraries, etc. Stop being such a freetard.
when greed and incompetence get mixed up.
You wanna write free software, write free software. You wanna make money, write commercial software and sell it. Should be this simple... but I suppose some people who aren't good enough to do #2 still wanna make money, so they ride on the coattails of a popular free software and do crap like "dual licensing".
Third-world problems are nothing either. You should see what's happening on Vorgon 3, my friend. Humans have it easy.
The GPL has never been about data (e.g. the Doom WAD files), but just about the code.
The fact that so many themes and what not are violating the principles of separation of content and presentation and interaction (HTML, CSS, and JS) is a problem. But, if they weren't doing it, then it wouldn't matter if the JS and CSS were Free or not. Because the content would be usable without the crap.
Personally, I just say, don't use themes that aren't all Free. Solves the issue for me.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
If I create something I'll license it how I please. If you want me to force me to license it a particular way, fuck you.
Whether or not it's legal is a different matter, but the spirit of the GPL is clearly the proliferation of open source software. Split licence variations have always been very much a compromise on the ideals of the GPL. The line gets muddier when GPL'd software relies on third party extensions to operate effectively. However, at the end of the day, if you're a developer and you don't like the idea of split licence models, then don't develop code for them. There are thousands of other projects out there which are pure GPL.
Actually, there usually is a spirit of legal document, and it can differ from the letter. For example, the CTEA might be argued to fit the letter of the Copyright Clause, since continual extensions are technical limited times, but it certainly doesn't fit the spirit of the constitutional there, as it can't feasibly promote literary progress to reward authors retroactively. Two Justices were aware of this fact, but the majority was not, unfortunately.
While GPLv3 may not have been the most elegantly exectuable change, it was driven by 3 needs. A new technological means of circumventing end-user control, an increasing threat of patent lawsuits under a new legal means, and better compatibility with existing licenses. The changes you decry are the result of treating a license somewhat like software, making what will hopefully be mostly improvements and patch flaws, but this inevitably results in some regressions. Honestly, 3 releases in over 25 years isn't bad at all.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Quit crying and go ask your mommy for money so you can ask a lawyer the only fucking question that matters:
IS IT LEGAL?
This essay comes to mind when reading the last couple sentences of the summary: http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_meme_hustler
There is a distinct difference between Open Source Software and Free Software. tl;dr: Free Software has ethics, but Open Source is more of a corporate-driven ideal that is not really on the side of the users. Given that the GPL was written for the express purpose of Free Software (not Open Source!!!) I'll invoke Betteridge's law on the last question of the summary and say that no, split-licensing is not in the spirit of the GPL, as it attempts to retain rights from users. This is the main problem that the Free Software Foundation has with advocating "Open Source" over "Free," and is why some projects that herald Open Source as some kind of tech-panacea are in fact not much better than their proprietary counterparts.
I have asked FSF about this specific issue.
They basically consider HTML as a container, like a ZIP archive. So, the "bundling" that occurs when HTML is combined and rendered to the browser is not considered a derivative work in the eyes of FSF, just like if you bundle GPL files with non-GPL files in a ZIP file, the contents of the ZIP do not all fall under the GPL.
This means that when things are combined in to an HTML file, even if parts of the HTML file are GPL, the entire resulting document, is not GPL.
I find this view inconsistent, and disagree with it, but it's their license, so who am I to judge. Mind, if my view were followed, then things would be quite different on the web. So, their view is probably the "correct", and most certainly "pragmatic" view. I just think it's inconsistent.
Now, how that applies to externally loaded files (like JS and CSS) is not clear to me, but I assume the same rules apply. In a normal program, were you to link them together, the entire finished product would be GPL. But not under the auspices of the browser environment, apparently.
I think if the "HTML is a container" view is the correct stance, then the included files would also be immune to the GPL for the same reasons.
you didn;t finish reading the entire motto...
'Open Source Matters to some one else.'
So.... is RedHat Linux non-Free since you can't redistribute their proprietary images/icons/wallpapers/etc ? After all, isn't CentOS the same code base, compiled the same way, with the same configurations, etc. but without RedHat's logos, etc?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
is a country declaring the GPL void according to its laws.
It's people like this poster who promote the whole "infectious" GPL crap that Microsoft et al have been capitalising.
This behaviour ("split licensing") is perfectly fine, legal and moral.
The GPL is all about preserving access to code. If you use GPL code, you have to publish that code. If you make changes to it, you need to publish those changes as well. This is to stop people "proprieterizing" GPLed code by making a few incompatible changes and releasing it.
The GPL doesn't mean that if you include a GPL library, you need to open source your whole project. But people are afraid it does mean that, due to people like the poster, and Microsoft's FUD. If you want to know why people are shying away from the GPL, and view it as a threat, look to the article submitter.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
The GPL is based on contract law and copyright rather that it being either a constitution or a law.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Whether the practice is "within the spirit" of the GPL is a moot point. The "spirit" of a license can mean whatever a person wants it to mean. The GPL is a license and deals with legalities, something either complies with the GPL or it does not. The "spirit" of a license is quite beside the point as it'll mean different things to different people.
Like PHP wasn't enough reason to avoid it in the first place.
The next version of the GPL will close this loophole. Just watch.
The developers allowed modularity in order to facilitate the integration of non-free and\or non-open code. It's what they wanted or they would have made sure plugins and extensions are impossible like the GNU GCC project did.
If you don't like your code being used this way, don't contribute to such projects. If you're writing a project that you intend people to share their improvements to, don't make it modular.
In the case of all this online non-sense: It's mostly just content glue and sliding menus... Just utter nonsense. If it was a huge concern there would have been a special clause in the license or the functionality would be highly restricted in the code. It wasn't because the devs can't care less.
Ok, he'd chew his hair and wax poetic. We know that already, but what would the poem say?.
I suspect it'd say: I'm sorry, but CSS very much is code. Not in the sense true languages are like C++, Python and PHP are. Ok, I'm not so sure that PHP qualifies. But anyway, the reason that even so piddly not-real-languages are part of the code is that it's nearly impossible to use the real code with the underlying CSS underpinnings that, actually, pin the boxes to the right place on the screen. Go ahead, take some huge news site, remove the CSS from it and see if you can still use it. I bet you can't. It frequently ends up looking like an application that magically put all their widgets rooted at 0,0 in the window. It's useless. Sure, it's all there, but it's useless. Thus, it has to be a rather important part of the "code". It takes both the output of the underlying framework langue and the CSS to make the result usable. Otherwise it's like compiling C-code into assembly, but for the wrong chip.
I'm quite sure this violates the principal of the GPL. I'm not sure about the letter of the law, since IANAL. But it sure smells like a GPLv4 is ripe for the picking.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Is your law degree from the University of Uranus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith_(law)
The GPL license under which I give away my work says that IF YOU WANT TO DIDTRIBUTE A MODIFIED VERSION , you have to also license "the complete work, as a whole" as GPL.
You are free to sell image sets that can be used with WordPress and user any license you wish . However, if you want to distribute my code with it as a complete theme, the only license you have for distributing my code is if you distribute the whole thing as GPL. Icons and CSS COULD be sold as completely separate works, but that would mean not including any WordPress derived PHP in the package.
And if I find a loophole or clause you didn't think of being interpreted in a certain way and I use that to then use the stuff you licensed in a way you DIDN'T want it to be used, then would it be "fuck you" to you?
If the stuff is required to enable the program then it's part of the program. If the program you added these bits to to change the free stuff to your derived work. then the extra bits have to be licensed similarly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You are DEFINITELY not a lawyer.
Because you're entirely and utterly wrong.
If there were no need for interpreting the intent where the license is not explicit, there would have been no need for SCO v IBM, since the license would have been completely as written.
But they aren't.
Therefore the intent has to be found from what information is available.
I don't hate the GPL, I just hate the politics behind it.
When something is GPL, the people come out of the woodwork to fork it, reverse engineer it and otherwise turn it into something it was not supposed to be. I've had this experience first hand, and quite honestly I'm not willing to deal with this again.
On the other side you have the BSD licence where redistributing the source is not a requirement, and you can pretty much keep it as it was designed to by telling people who fork it to change the name of the product.
What I'm getting at is that the spirit of the GPL is to keep software "open", not so much free. When software is open you can download it, compile it and add whatever tweak you need to it to make it work in your environment. You can do that with BSD and you can do that with GPL, but the latter would like you to contribute your changes back. This works up until you get into Patents.
As soon as Patents come into play the GPL is now unworkable, since those tweaks may violate patent licences. So this is why the "binary blobs" exist in Linux via shims to skirt the GPL licence.
This is also what happens with these split licence PHP/Javascript/CSS things. The font or image may be subject to CC SA, but not CC ND. So someone may produce a theme or plugin for a CMS like wordpress or Joomla, but the only part that is really open is the part that inter-operates with the CMS. The Javascript and CSS ... well let me just tell you this, I've DMCA'd people for taking my javascript because they didn't ask. If you want to learn how it works, I'm don't care, but if you outright copy it, that is not learning, that's stealing, and I never licence anything under the GPL. I will licence things under BSD if it's basically throw-away code. Otherwise it's "All rights reserved." As I said earlier, I won't deal with GPL projects because people will just fork it so they don't have to give their changes back.
I'm quoting the plain text of the license. Section 5(c) for you:
c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.
This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged.
I don't understanding what it's implying, you say? That's not an implication, that's a plain declaration, and in case anyone was too dense to understand
"you must license the entire work, as a whole", they repeated it AGAIN, saying "the whole of the work, and all its parts".
As for "if you're using the stock GPL license" look at the VERY FIRST LINE of the license, even before the preamble:
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
So yeah, you're using the stock GPL license. Funny you want to act like you're an expert on the GPL, even though you've clearly not even read the FIRST LINE of it.
Seriously dude, it's okay not to be THEexpert on everything. You don't have to act like you know more than everyone else on every topic and act like I"M clueless when
I've actually taken legal action under the GPL, so I kind of know WTF it says. Next time, instead of arguing from ignorance, try reading the darn thing and learning what it says. It's not that long.
Oh, how we dream of making it to the posh digs on Vorgon 3. /. from the hydrocolonic acid ocean that is Cornholio 7?
Do you know how hard it is to browse
That is not true at all. The GPL was devised for a very specific purpose and that purpose has been explained and discussed at work.
What is true is that using force to prevent people from exercising their rights here would be wrong and against the spirit (ie if you actually sue someone in for violating the spirit of the license that suit should not be a winner.) But expecting people that claim to be oriented towards the ideals of free and open source software to avoid circumventing that spirit does not seem unreasonable at all. It's not exactly a fine line, but a pretty broad one, between 'what you are doing is not illegal' and 'what you are doing is positively good.'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
That's an interesting point. Section 5(c) of the GPL copyright license seems to give you COPYRIGHT rights to distribute the art under GPL:
c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.
This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged.
However, according to both RedHat and the CentOS project, most distribution of RedHat logos and other "proprietary images" is still covered under TRADEMARK rights.
The Red Hat logo marks it as a Red Hat product, so though they may not have a COPYRIGHT claim thanks to the GPL, they'd still have a trademark claim if you used
their name and logo on something other than their product. Therefore, the CentOS project replaces images of the RedHat logo, the RedHat name, and similar trademarks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
they aren't they are hosted on the server and if you didn't have that distribution method they could not run.... .....the cost of encryption to prevent spying is beginning to ad dup....we dont need costs on websites and viewing to go up.
thus one might also argue that as the gpl is a distribution liscnese that they are just trying to evade its language....
lets jsut tighten it and slap them out of business
is that from the very beginning (the split from mambo), joomla has embraced, supported, and even encouraged paid proprietary-licensed plugins to their gpl-licensed software.. the buyers of which do NOT get plugins which are properly licensed under a compatible license, they do not have redistribution rights, etc... as they are SUPPOSED TO GET. yes, you can sell plugins for gpl licensed software, but sold plugins MUST BE gpl-licensed. the joomla folks simply don't get it, and don't care.... which is the opposite of something like textpattern, which goes so far as to spell out right on its web site that plugins should be gpl-licensed.
ya, the games people play with licensing and gpl sometimes sucks, and is wrong.... but in the case of joomla, the problem is MUCH MUCH BIGGER.
That is not true at all. The GPL was devised for a very specific purpose and that purpose has been explained and discussed at work.
Then this should be made specific and overt. If a relevant or necessary demand is missing from the license, the license needs to be rewritten to include said demand.
The term, "spirit," by its' very nature, refers to something undefined, non-specific, and acorporeal. I'm surprised that anyone who identifies as an atheist in particular, would be comfortable with using it.
I say again; if there is a "spirit," or an "ethos," associated with the FSF or the GPL, and such has heretofore been implicit and "intuitive," then it should be made explicit, specific, and tangible, so that there can be no misunderstand, and no excuse.
My understanding of version 2 of the GPL, as the clearest example, was that if I modify the source code of a work governed by said license, I must make publically available, both the unmodified source code, AND the source code of my own modifications, to anyone who asks for it, as a condition of using/developing said work.
My understanding was not, however, that I am required to subscribe to any other belief, whether it be political, social, or in any other form, that may or may not be advocated by the Free Software Foundation.
In other words, if I use the GPL, I need to provide source with binaries. That's all.
I do not need to worship Richard Stallman as God. I do not need to subscribe to the philosophy of Karl Marx or Leon Trotsky in general terms. I don't need to believe Stallman's self-aggrandizing lies about how the very concept of source code availability supposedly originated with him, and did not exist before him. Hell, I don't even need to like him, or anyone else associated with the FSF, as people at all.
All I need to do, is provide source with binaries. That's it. Nothing else.
Of course the GPL has a spirit that goes beyond its legal wording. The clearest example of that in action was when the GPL v3 was introduced to block things like Tivoization. That sort of loophole was against the spirit of the license, but not explicitly blocked by it. Once the problem was clearly identified, the legal language of the license was updated. You can think of that as turning more of the spirit of the license into explicit legalese. People who think the wording of these licenses are some sort of challenge, where victory is finding a loophole, can expect the licenses to evolve against them too.
Actually, you could do that with GPL code as well. Just use trademark law. Firefox does the same thing, which is why Debian ships iceweasel. Now, it might be a bit more complex if you are building your project off of someone else's GPL code, but in that case, you are likely the one who is "it into something it was not supposed to be."
Actually, you don't need to share your contributions in you don't distribute your code.
Patents break everything everywhere. Where GPL patent clauses get messy is when you are shipping a product where you license a patent from someone else.
As for binary blobs, that's usually not tied to patents. Otherwise, distros from countries without software patents would ship with Nvidia drivers. Binary blobs are the results of non-free code. I believe a large portion of it is that the code is already under a restrictive copyright license for reasons like sharing a decent chunk of code with a proprietary windows driver, which they may not retain all the rights to. There's also fear that competitors will reverse engineer their products via this source code or similar such nonsense.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
These trademark issues aren't even specific to RedHat or CentOS. Debian even rebrands their version of Firefox and Thunderbird as IceWeasel and IceDove, also due to trademark restrictions.
If it's possible to rebrand a program easily in this way, I take that as proof the artwork involved is not really an essential part of the program. The changes of the CentOS and Debian artwork forks do not diminish any feature of the software. That can't be said about most CSS and Javascript, and even some images are mandatory for a program to be useful.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Then this should be made specific and overt. If a relevant or necessary demand is missing from the license, the license needs to be rewritten to include said demand."
You marched right past the point. This is NOT a demand! It is not the intention of the GPL to in any way expand copyright law to regulate any more than it already does! As long as copyright law doesnt define the artwork as a derivative work of the GPLd code then the license, legally speaking, isnt needed. And that's fine. One of the key differences between the GPL and other common license is that it does NOT attempt in any way to push its scope beyond activities that legally require a license, and that was a very deliberate choice, in accord with the spirit you claim to be unable to discern though it is explained all over the free software foundations website, including but limitied to the preamble and FAQs accompanying the various GPLs.
But the purpose of the GPL and the free and open software (and content, and hardware...) movement is ultimately to make as much as possible free and open. And so if you say you are really working in the spirit of free and open software, you should want to free everything you CAN free, not just as much as you are required to free in order to use the code. It's ok to use the code and do the minimum required! That's why it's called the minimum required, because you can do that and that's ok. But you should NOT do that and claim to be some kind of champion of the community, or a big believer in free and open, because if you are just doing the minimum required you just are not that, because that turns something positive into something negative. Instead of just being smart enough to take advantage of free software, you are now a hypocrite trying to exploit it.
Honestly, this is basic ethics, I feel silly having to explain that you can be within your rights but nonetheless acting hypocritically. It shouldnt be such a difficult concept.
"I do not need to worship Richard Stallman as God. I do not need to subscribe to the philosophy of Karl Marx or Leon Trotsky in general terms."
Oh FFS go crawl back under a rock. (I'm a conservative republican dont you dare call me a communist you blithering idiot. Also get off my lawn.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I won't deal with GPL projects because people will just fork it so they don't have to give their changes back.
Forking a project doesn't change its license that way. You can complain about people who outright ignore the code's license, and those who bypass it via "reverse engineering" that's mostly copying code between projects. Those both happen, and that's a problem sometimes. But neither of those can be called forking.
It seems like the biggest reason people buy Red Hat is because it's a trusted brand. There are thousands of software packages on a Red Hat disk. People trust that Red Hat has selected good software, patched it as needed, and integrated the various pieces of software.
It's ok to use the code and do the minimum required!
The problem is the fact that anything else gets said. If that is what the license requires, then that is what the license requires. The stuff about, "being a big believer in free and open," is extraneous, subjective garbage; and is exactly the issue, here.
If I do what I am legally required to do, then I should neither be applauded for being a member of the cult, or condemned if I am not a member of it. If I am legally in compliance, then I should not have to know or care about the opinion of "the community," one way or the other.
If the opinion of "the community," matters, then put it in the license as something I am legally required to do. Otherwise they can and should shut the fuck up.
As another point, when you say that this is basic ethics, you make it sound as though you're talking about something universal; when in fact, you are not. You're talking about the ideology of one specific group of people; and said ideology for the most part doesn't have anything in common with how the rest of the population thinks, at all.
So in other words, you're damn right that I'm going to be pedantic to the point of legalism, and demand anyone else engaging in this conversation to do likewise.
"The problem is the fact that anything else gets said. If that is what the license requires, then that is what the license requires. " And again you charge straight past the point, oblivious. I just spent quite a bit of time explaining to you clearly and concisely why this is not the case here. Read it, or dont. I'm not going to waste time retyping it for you if you cant be bothered to read it the first time.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The GPL license isn't that long . You could probably read it in one trip to the bathroom.
If you read it, you'll find that:
No, you do not have to make your modifications public .
If you CHOOSE to distribute a binary, you must offer to distribute the source as well.
The intent, the spirit, IS made explicit in the first paragraph, the preamble.
IIRC, it was part of the terms to obtain Windows XP driver certification. That is why ATI had to stop supporting the free ATI driver.
GPL covers source code. JavaScript and CSS is "source code". Images are not "source code". If you re-distribute inhibited source code, or do not provide an address to obtain source code (valid for at least 2 years) it is a violation of GPL. End of story.
So if you think the patron had no influence on the music ever, at all....I think you'd be mistaken.
I don't blame the GPL.
I blame unscrupulous companies trying to use patents to undermine the goals of open source.
And by the way, you completely misread the GPL.
The GPL says NOTHING about kicking changes back upstream. It only says you have to punt your source code downstream to your users.
It's to protect your users from getting locked out by proprietary software keeping the source code under wraps so that they can't change it. It says nothing about forcing you to let upstream freeload off of your work.
The difference between the GPL and BSD in that regard is that the GPL prevents you from locking your own changes down on YOUR users. There is no difference between them as far as your relations with your upstream goes.
As far as people making unacceptable changes, the GPL requires you to put notices on anything you change so that you don't get blamed for their bugs.
Stop spreading FUD.
The whole thing about source code for proprietary products is a load of bupkis when it comes to patents.
Patents are about what your code actually does, and not what its source code looks like.
Closed sourcing something doesn't protect it from infringing patents.
All it really does is make it harder for you to get caught.
This, truly, is one reason why companies fear open source. They're afraid of getting their hands caught in someone else's cookie jar.
How often is it said "You haven't bought the software, you've bought a license"?
So Microsoft Windows, you buy the license which is ONLY the limited right to install. No manual, no service contract (if OEM).
So does this mean that you can't sell closed source software?
Must do.
So then why single out OSS software for this "problem"? It exists for all software that is under copyright.
And if you don't like it, get your laws changed to define derived works more clearly to your wishes.
But it has fuck all to do with the GPL but with copyright.
Try statically compiling DirectX into your game and let Microsoft know you're doing it.
Viral, but you're not going to maintain that Microsoft's code is GPL, are you?
And why complain about someone relicensing BSD code as GPL? The original code is still there, and BSD trolls insist that taking the BSD code propriatory (the only real difference between GPL and BSD) is fine because the original code sans improvement is still available, so therefore there's no problem with taking it GPL.
Or are you saying that it's NOT OK to make a derived work of BSD code that you can't use as BSD licensed after derivation? Or is that only the case if it's being GPL'd but not if it's being licensed a propriatory way?
Your first paragraph is a definition of the spirit of a legal document. It's the rules that reflect the goals of those who drafted the GPL, including both seen and hithertofore unforeseen situations. If every situation was foreseen, then there could be no legal loopholes, and therefore nothing could ever could fulfill the letter of the law but not the spirit.
Do you have a problem with the word spirit or something? This isn't a new concept and it doesn't need scare quotes.
Plone does this kind of thing too, but there's an important distinction. CSS/JS that are required for an add-on to be functional still have to be under the GPL, whereas purely display CSS/JS/HTML (such as for themes) doesn't.
The way Plone themes are applied is by an XSL-based transform step, called diazo, so the themes in Plone will work on any website, regardless of backend. The only thing that needs doing is the source rules need updating to take account of different ids and classes.
"This is why the GPL is dangerous - it's complex"
Uh, why is that the GPL? That's COPYRIGHT doing that. If your code is copyrighted (and all code is: you have no method of setting works to public domain except by letting the right expire 90+ years later), then it has the problem of what is a derived work or not.
Which is why every man and his dog ignore licensing because copyright is broken.
A bigger issue is the potential for GPL source for a proprietary interpreter, or GPL source for a chain of GPL interpreters where a proprietary transformation is required at some stages of the build process. The GPL does not require disclosure of a fully working build process (else a Windows binary compiled from GPL source in Visual Studio would require providing the recipient with a licensed copy of Visual Studio or a working alternative).
John_Chalisque
Forking does that, because the GPL doesn't require that you contribute your changes back only forwards: you must give the code to the people you give binaries to, nothing more. It's easy to fork a project, make some structural changes, and then release your version that has all of the code that isn't necessary for your use removed and other things that are annoying for anyone who doesn't have access to the rest of your system added. The code is still available, but the cost of merging changes back upstream is often greater than the cost of rewriting them from scratch.
This is fine according to RMS, because the GPL is not meant to protect the authors of the original code, it's meant to protect the users who receive products based on it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I bet the OP 100% of the time stays at or under the speed limit, too.
"Spirit of the GPL" - lol
This reminds of a lot of games or game-engines that have been open-sources, especially those from ID Software, etc.
That leaves people perfectly able to look at the code behind the game, modify it, etc. It doesn't allow them to release their own copy of Doom or Quake as the resources (images, meshes, etc) are still the property of ID.
And you know what, this is perfectly OK. If you want to learn from the engine, you can. If you want to modify the game, anyone with the original disk can play with your mod. If you want to fix a vulnerability or add features to an application, you can.
I'm not sure how licensable HTML is, but I'd imagine that one could come up with something that works perfectly fine without the original markup, and you're still capable of finding/fixing bugs in the back-end source. I've always found one of the advantages of GPL to be that you can dig into the inner workings of software, and deal with issues as needed. This doesn't change that.
wasn't doom source (and quake whatever) always released as a SEPARATE package. the game never came to you if you bought it with gpl'd engine and data alongside it. you got the open source engine from elsewhere, as a separate product release from carmack - and you had to provide data files yourself.
so pulling that to this doesn't really help. the point here is that you get the package, it has gpl'd parts in it.. but boom something in the zip isn't under gpl even though you could have thought so.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
> a distributor can distribute something that is "the work" alongside (and potentially intermingled with) something that isn't "the work" without causing the two to become mixed
..
I'm not sure how you can have it "intermingled with" but not "mixed", but les pretend that sentence somehow makes sense.
You pointed to the aggregation clause. You looked at the second half of the sentence, how about the first half of the sentence you point to:
A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work,
and which are not combined with it
So that applies to "separate and independent works" which are NOT extensions of the original work.
So would that apply to the stuff on http://extensions.joomla.org/ ? Interesting URL, isn't that? Your argument can make sense only if you claim that Joomla extensions aren't extensions of Joomla.
"Mere aggregation" is when two SEPARATE works such as Apache and Firefox are burned to the same disk.
The spirit is meaninglessness, unless codified in the letter. Otherwise it becomes a dangerous game of interpretation.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Companies have formed around developing and supporting free software. You just change the business model away from selling per-unit packages into selling services and support.
What "services and support" would one sell for, say, a Free video game? Selling mission packs would lead to the situation described in the article, where the meshes, textures, maps, audio, and scripts that make up the mission pack are not free software.
fortunately for 'FOSS Shills' COTS software has never been more than about 10% of the total software market.
How much of, say, the video game market is COTS software?
What's the counterpart to "performance" for someone developing a non-MMO video game that uses a Free engine but non-free assets?
Yes, people can copy a program, modify it, and only release the source to users who get the binaries. That's usually a meaningless edge case now though. In your average case, where the source and binaries are being distributed via the web to anyone who wants it, the GPL terms will still compel release of the modified source code.
And in the case where people make large changes such that they can't be merged upstream, who cares? Let them hack up a private version and maintain that junk forever. I don't want crappy code like that anyway. Why get stressed about "oh noes, people will fork my code and ruin it and not share"...just ignore those forkers and move along. If your changes won't merge upstream, there's some bad news: you won't be able to pull from upstream either. People who haven't figured that out are going to fail at open source work anyway, better to ignore them altogether.
Split licensing for plugins with the GPL is only possible if the plugin forks or an exception is given in the license. If the main program is GPL, the plugins can be non-GPL only if they fork or exec (or otherwise don't touch the GPL code), otherwise they must be GPL. If the scripts or whatever are not executing in GPL code, then no problem, and if they are, it is a violation of the GPL. It may be a paradox - both a violation of the GPL and not if, say, you are running a javascript plugin in a GPL web browser vs one that isn't GPL or give an exception that doesn't apply to all places a user runs the plugin.
I told the GPL 3 people plugins would be hugely problematic and argued some of these same points, but they (the GPL vetting folks) didn't think it was an issue and vetted it anyway. In fact, they originally told me plugins could not be GPL, only libraries could, but they chose to open that can of worms after that, and I knew they would.
Yes, I'm sure you can get your complex ideas across to millions of people exactly to the letter the first time. You're my hero....
"Yes, it is perfectly within the spirit of the GPL to add exemptions to the license terms. Plenty of GPL projects, even those from the GNU project, have exemptions to the GPL terms such as linking in GPLed libraries, etc. Stop being such a freetard."
It may be within the spirit, but not for OP's given, manufactured, bullshit reason.
The fact that it runs on the browser rather than the server has absolutely no bearing on its licensing model. That's like saying player piano rolls weren't "music" because they played on a mechanical device rather than an orchestra. The courts have actually ruled on that (circa 100 years ago) and the answer is: no.
you have no method of setting works to public domain except by letting the right expire 90+ years later
Since when is it impossible for an author to license the copyright in his computer program to the public under terms equivalent to public domain status?
Trademarks are expensive, both up front, and to maintain.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
True, but that nothing to do with this issue. You can rename any BSD or GPL project. However, you can also use trademark to force forks to have a different name if they deviate outside of certain criteria.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The bit about "mere aggregation" was expanded in GPLv3, not removed. Look near the bottom of section 5 for the word "aggregate".
THANK YOU. And you want moist and delicious irony, I get modded flamebait for pointing out how this "spirit" bullshit turns things into quagmires, and what is posted AS A REPLY TO ME? A dozen fucking interpretations of the spirit, none of which fucking agree!
This is the WHOLE POINT OF CONTRACTS, to have EVERYTHING spelled out in black white precisely so I DON'T have to play "guess WTF you want" so all these GPLers pushing this "spirit" bullshit are doing is making damned sure nobody trusts the GPL because you have to play "Guess WTF they want" because now its not just in the contract, you have to guess what the "spirit" of the contract is!
A perfect example is TiVo, they followed the contract TO THE LETTER, and then they get written into GPL V3 as a monster because they didn't follow the "spirit" which frankly is WTF ever RMS feels like this week, see how RMS said you could charge for documentation...until devs started not releasing docs as GPL (because there is no way to charge for anything you can just copy endlessly for free) then "Documentation wants to be free!". NO you loonie, a piece of data doesn't "want" anything, YOU WANT people to do WTF ever you say and when it turns out you suck at writing contracts you want to get all pissy that they can't guess what the "spirit" is!
Spirits are for movies and seances folks, NOT contracts, if you can't write a damned contract without pulling that "spirit" bullshit that is YOUR FAULT, write a better damned contract!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If the GPL is void, then copyright forbids anybody but the copyright owner from distributing copies of a covered work, modified or unmodified. Or are you talking about declaring copyright void? That'll get a country get kicked out of the World Trade Organization.
Images are not "source code".
Could you explain why PNG images that aren't derived from an underlying SVG or layered XCF are not "source code"?
> a distributor can distribute something that is "the work" alongside (and potentially intermingled with) something that isn't "the work" without causing the two to become mixed
I'm not sure how you can have it "intermingled with" but not "mixed", but les pretend that sentence somehow makes sense.
You pointed to the aggregation clause. You looked at the second half of the sentence, how about the first half of the sentence you point to:
A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work,
and which are not combined with it ..
So that applies to "separate and independent works" which are NOT extensions of the original work.
So would that apply to the stuff on http://extensions.joomla.org/ ? Interesting URL, isn't that? Your argument can make sense only if you claim that Joomla extensions aren't extensions of Joomla.
"Mere aggregation" is when two SEPARATE works such as Apache and Firefox are burned to the same disk.
The lines are more blurred than you suggest. What about, say, the Linux kernel and Apache? The latter makes use of the services provided by the former, in much the same way that a plugin for a web application uses services provided by that application, but does that mean Linux builds of it can only be distributed under the terms of the GPL? Most people seem to assume otherwise, and I fail to see the practical distinction between the two cases discussed here.
No, of course you won't, but much like code you keep adding to and improving it. Simply relying on people understanding the spirit is...ridiculous.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
The HUGE difference there is that Apache doesn't have code copy-pasted from the kernel.
Themes generally have a lot of code, in some cases most of their code , copied directly from the default theme. That means the theme, the entire theme, is under the GPL.
In a more borderline case, say a small extension that doesn't use any code copied directly from the original project, there is a simple test for "derivative work". You said "Linux build" of Apache. The same source will build and run on FreeBSD or Mac OSX. That strongly suggests it's an independent work from the Linux kernel. On the other hand, a WordPress plugin can only run as part of WordPress. You can't consume compile a WordPress plugin for VBulletin instead. Therefore it's not separate and indrpendent from WordPress.
I always took Matters to be a noun.
I used to be
We don't know that drivers won't compile for FreeBSD or Mac when we can only see the binary.
We also don't know if they are based on the GPL driver, or if they are based on the Windows driver.
I suspect that in most cases, the proprietary drivers as based on the existing Windows drivers. In that case, they would probably be unaffected by the GPL in terms of derivation . Drivers are alittle special, though, in that they are loaded into the kernel, becoming part of the GPL kernel. That should of course be weighed with any other factors known.
Precisely because the status (and safety) can't be determined without seeing or knowing something about the source, some companies release a thin GPL wrapper that is the only part loaded into the kernel. It then calls a userspace binary that does the proprietary stuff.