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 AmeritecTechChange we can believe in, 1922Premium
join:2002-09-06
Houston, TX
kudos:6 | reply to fAcEtIOUs
Re: OpenWRT would have a problem in court said by fAcEtIOUs:» www.linksysinfo.org/modules.php?···&thold=0The GPL itself is an "all or nothing" license based on the economic and political theories of Karl Marx. It claims it can subsume any other license if a single line of "GPL" licensed source code is used anywhere in the source files. Should this occur, all source code files become magically GPL licensed in their entirety. Naturally this claim by the GPL has never been tested in court and the GPL folks have adroitly avoided any and all court cases that might lead to a thorough legal review of the GPL license terms.
Projects like OpenWRT have "re-licensed" large portions of Broadcom copyright source code (and Sveasoft copyright source code) as GPL licensed source code. Since the above license terms specifically and clearly forbid this, this means the entire distribution's copyright and license terms are in doubt. Since the GPL is "all or nothing", according to the terms of the GPL none of OpenWRT is covered by the GPL license anymore. Quite a catch-22.
Hopefully a US court will decide the validity and legal reach of the GPL sometime soon (GNU is a US-based organization). IF the highlighted info above is correct as to the facts, then OpenWRT would have a very hard time winning anything in court. I doubt Sveasoft has much to worry about from OpenWRT's threats. GPL is solid, and the fact that no one has ever tried to defy it in court is a testament to the fact that it is considered strong. Linux and many of the programs distributed with it are also licensed under the GPL.
Anyway, anyone who doesn't want to use GPL-protected source code doesn't have to. They can ignore it and write their own code.
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"Independent thinkers tend to ALWAYS have someone Not agreeing with them. It's The non-thinkers that ALWAYS come in legions."-John Callari | |
 cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:5
 ·Frontier FiOS
| said by AmeritecTech:Anyway, anyone who doesn't want to use GPL-protected source code doesn't have to. They can ignore it and write their own code. Actually, the "viral" nature of the GPL only really kicks in once you redistribute the code. You are free to use, modify, and keep to yourself all the code you want. Only when you start giving it away (or charging for it) that you must make your changes available.
Sveasoft was ok, although probably not in the spirit of the GPL, charging for their subscriptions. Booting people from their forums and restricting access also was crappy but still technically within the limits of the GPL. But when they started distributing binaries and not releasing the source code it became a problem.
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"What gives them the right to come in and do this?" she said. - Lady complaining that she was getting FIOS in her backyard. | |
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