Novell/progeny to take up redhat legacy services

[Peter Surda]

On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 07:31:34PM -0500, Carlos Villegas wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, but that example (personalized binary) clearly would
> violate the GPL, if the original code is GPL, then any derivative work is
> GPL (personlized source that produced the binary), as such you are entitled
> to that source and can redistribute it and modify it as you please.
> And again I'm not a lawyer, but to me the binary that results from
> compilation is a derivative work (if not the same), and as such has no
> restrictions on redistribution.
IANAL as well, but I think this is correct.

BUT!

GPL basically regulates what should happen IF YOU DECIDE to distribute GPLd
software (binary/source/whatever). It doesn't say that you MUST decide to
distribute, or that you must distribute to EVERYONE. This is the main point.

To make this more clear, consider the following two sentences. The first one
represents what many think GPL is, but isn't. The second one is what GPL
really is.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If a software is GPLd, a distributor must give everyone all the "GPL rights".

If a distributor gives someone GPLd software, he must give them all the GPL
rights".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

To make this even more clear in a list like this one, here is what it would
look like written in a programming language :-) :

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
if (soft_gpld())
    if (not get_software(distributor) or not get_rights(distributor))
        panic ("GPL violation!");

if (soft_gpld())
    if (get_software(distributor) and not get_rights(distributor))
        panic ("GPL violation!");
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Without a doubt, those 2 don't always produce the same results, depending on
get_software(distributor).

So, Red Hat may not restrict what you do with the sources or binaries you get
from RHN (for GPLd software at least), but may for example decide to cancel
your RHN account in case you don't pay for all of it, or redistribute binaries
or whatever. The first program would claim it is a GPL violation, the second
one that it isn't :-).

> Carlos
Bye,

Peter Surda (Shurdeek) <shurdeek at routehat.org>, ICQ 10236103, +436505122023

-- 
       They called their place of existence the "Universe", not the
                      "Great Programmer/Universe".