LEGAL,TRUE, or what?

[Ola Thoresen]

Frank S. wrote:
> Hi I read this on Mint Linux Forum. please could someone comment on it.
> I would love to hear some opinions.
> Thank you very much

There are actually two different issues here, which seesm to confuse the 
debate a bit.
a) Does the GPL allow for something to be included in the distribution?
b) Does the licence of the included part allow for it to be included?

As for a) - this is only a problem if you use non-GPL-code to create a 
derivate product from GPL-code.

As for b) - the problem is that the owner of the affected patents and 
code does not allow you to distribute it.

The GPL makes it illegal for the kernel developers to include the closed 
source Nvidia-modules in the Linux kernel.
But it is the mp3-patents and copyrights that makes it illegal for 
Fedora to include an mp3-support in the distribution, even if there are 
lots of GPL-mp3-players out there.

It is the same problem with the earlier SUN Java-license (now they are 
slowly converting to GPL), and the Macromedia flashplayer-license.  It 
is _SUN_ who does not allow Fedora to include SUN-java, and it is 
_Macromedia_ who restricts the distribution of their flash-player.



-- 
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   .--.--';_'-.', ";_      _.,-'   Ola Thoresen
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