OT: GPL status of modified source (Was Re: Octave-forge and legal issues)

[Tom 'spot' Callaway]

On Mon, 2005-04-25 at 17:35 +0200, Matthias Saou wrote:
> Ralf Corsepius wrote :
> 
> > On Mon, 2005-04-25 at 16:56 +0200, Matthias Saou wrote:
> > > Quentin Spencer wrote :
> > > 
> > > > 2. Create a modified source tarball with the offending code removed. 
> > > > This would be easy, but the source wouldn't match the upstream source.
> > > 
> > > This has already been done for some packages (e.g. xmms, gstreamer-
> > > plugins), and AFAIK is acceptable.
> > ... unless the sources are GPL'ed. Not shipping the original sources
> > would violate the GPL.
> 
> Sounds like FUD. Could you elaborate a bit more? For me, this would
> clearly be a case of "work based on the program", which is something the
> GPL permits and even encourages (see section 2 of the license).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that its not a violation. (IANAL)

It counts as a "modified" version of GPL code. Doesn't stop it from
being GPL.

~spot
-- 
Tom "spot" Callaway: Red Hat Sales Engineer || GPG Fingerprint: 93054260
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