On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 8:54 PM geneb <ge...@deltasoft.com> wrote: > On Thu, 26 Sep 2019, Ralf Quint wrote: > > > interest to open source ANY part of ANY windows. Even Windows 1.x and > > 2.x, which are on GitHub now, are still copyrighted. So it all comes > > Copyright has nothing to do with how "open" something is.
Correct. Things like the Linux kernel and the various stuff for FreeDOS are open source under the GPL. GPLed code is copyrighted software, and the author retains the copyright. By default, the GPL licenses you to get GPLed source and binaries, use them and share them free of charge, and encourages you to contribute changes you make to the source back upslream. It does require you to share it as you got it, with copyright notices intact. It's also "viral", and any code you write that links against GPLed code becomes GPLed too. (This is a major sticking point for some folks.) If you want to issue a closed source fork of GPLed code, you can try to negotiate a license with the copyright holder that will let you do so. A major problem for open source is incompatibilities in different open source licenses. It's a source of irony when you can't use open source code form another product in something you are writing because the license it uses is incompatible with the one you chose. (And I understand that GPL v2 is incompatible with GPL v3, which just compounds the irony.) My preference these days is for things under an MIT or BSD license, which is a lot more open than GPL. > g. ______ Dennis _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
