On May 8, 9:29 pm, Paul Rubin <no.em...@nospam.invalid> wrote: > Carl Banks <pavlovevide...@gmail.com> writes: > > If a commercial developer has a EULA that prevents users from > > combining their tools with tools from (say) their competitors, > > Do you mean something like a EULA that stops you from buying a copy of > Oracle and combining it with tools from IBM on the computer that you > install Oracle on?
Yes > Those EULAs exist but are not remotely comparable to > the GPL. They're not exactly the same but they're quite comparable and both disrespectful to the user. > > The GPL does exactly that, > > No it doesn't (not like the above). You, the licensee under the GPL, > can make those combinations and use them as much as you want on your own > computers. You just can't distribute the resulting derivative to other > people. With proprietary software you can't redistribute the software > to other people from day zero (or even use more copies within your own > company than you've paid for), regardless of whether you've combined it > with anything. And since you usually don't get the source code, it's > awfully hard to make derived combinatoins. Really, commercial closed source programs don't have APIs? If the EULA isn't disrespectful likle the GPL, then I could write a program that links against multiple closed source API and distribute closed or open source binaries. Can't do either if you change one of the proprietary programs to GPL. GPL is a lot more restrictive than mere closed source proprietary when it comes to stuff like that. Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
