On Fri, Dec 29, 2000, Adi Stav wrote about "Re: ipchains":
> Likewise, no program can
> "contaminate" other programs and change their license, whether or not
> you link them together. What the GPL is saying that you cannot
>....
> If you want to use others' GPLed code in more
> restricted programs, go ahead and ask the authors. I fail to see why
> this makes you so furious.
But the GPL causes the following sort of "comtamination": Take any of the
important pieces of GPL software on the Internet. Most, if not all, of them
have been written by more than one person. Some of them have been written
or update by dozens of people over the years. Each of these people are not
only forbidden from releasing the improved version under a more restrictive
license, but also from releasing it under a less restrictive one! So any
program that once caught the GPL "virus" will stay a carrier for ever, or
until every one of the authors agree to change the license, which isn't likely
to ever happen in a program with many authors. What happens happens when
a program has 20 authors, and 19 agree to change the license but 1 doesn't,
and the small part that guy wrote is so strongly intertwined in the program
it can no longer be easily removed? (e.g., this guy added a new, trivial,
function to some API, and any attempt to redo his work will obviously end
up looking the same thing).
> Also, nowhere does the GPL limit "interoperability". Only use code as
> part of another program. Whether or not you consider an executable and
> a dynamic library accompanying it two parts of the same program or not
> is a different issue. GPLv3 intends to clarify this and other points.
There's another problematic issue about the GPL. It's quite clear how it
applies to software companies, but how does it apply to Hardware companies?
For example, some companies are selling a VCR-like product that records on
a hard-disk and that allows cool features like playing back while recording
(you can skip commercials if you start watching the movie 20 minutes after
starting recording it!). Anyway, some of these products are actually small
modified PCs (with extra, special hardware), running Linux plus the company's
proprietary software. Now, how does the GPL apply here?
If needed, the company can supply the product with a CD of the GNU/Linux
sources (but it's probably not needed because it is found on the Internet).
But do they have to also give away the sources of the proprietary VCR-interface
program? It doesn't look that way. I actually find this a good thing, because
the GPL was meant to stop the tyranny of the software companies, not of the
consumer-electronics companies. On the contrary: the consumer-electronic
companies are damaged by the software giants in the same way us invidual users
are, and should be allowed to benefit by the same solution.
Besides, all the "crap" about your rights to make copies doesn't really apply
to consumer electronics: you can't (yet) copy a physical machine.
> > Some commercial companies
> > explicitly prohibit their workers even to touch GPLed software or enter it
> > into the campuses. Not because they hate free software so much - but
> > because current copyright system can make all their code "derived work"
> > just because some of the developers took a look into GPLed code.
What kind of judge is going to make a decision against a company when in a
100,000 line code, 50 lines "somehow distantly resemble" code from a GPLed
program? If the developer only looks at the code, that's what going to happen -
he won't suddenly have 10,000 lines identical to a GPL program. If he does
have such 10,000 lines, it means he copied them, not just looked.
--
Nadav Har'El | Friday, Dec 29 2000, 4 Tevet 5761
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |I used to work in a pickle factory,
http://nadav.harel.org.il |until I got canned.
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