Re: Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Anders Karlsson wrote:
* Rahul Sundaram  [20080720 19:42]:
Anders Karlsson wrote:
And any license that does not permit itself to be replaced or
over-ruled by the GPL - is hence incompatible - even if it explicitly
permits combination with the GPL for any derived work or combination
work.

Am I understanding this right?
This part is incorrect. If has additional requirements but explicitly states that the combination is compatible with GPL, then it is. Affero GPL (AGPL) is a example of this.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

Thanks Rahul for taking the time to be plesant and provide useful
answers to a genuine question. You are a credit to your employer and
to the organisation you represent.

That would be Red Hat and Fedora respectively but as always my opinions are my own and you should find a lawyer for legal opinions on specific instances

So the part of the work that is non-GPL licensed, can stay non-GPL
licensed in the combined works and derivatives?

I would differentiate between original and derivative (along with combined work) here just to be more precise.

Not only can it stay that way, it must that way for the original code. Again, nooone other than the original copyright holder(s) cannot arbitrarily change the license of the original code and even the copyright holder cannot retroactively change it for the original code (aside from providing it under different licenses in addition)

For derivative works, the author creating a derivative work (that includes substantial creative works justifying copyright) might choose to publish it under a different license if the original license permits that. If the license requires that the derivative work also fall under the same license, it is generally referred to as copyleft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

GPL was the first license which used this technique but there are several others which follow a similar technique to various extends including the Mozilla Public License, MPL ( and MPL derived licenses such as CDDL used by OpenSolaris), IBM CPL (used for Postfix)and even the Microsoft Reciprocal License (which is both free and open source)

http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx#Ms-RL

Even if the combined code is under GPL, the original code is still under whatever license it was originally licensed under and will remain that way.

Rahul

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Index of Archives]     [Current Fedora Users]     [Fedora Desktop]     [Fedora SELinux]     [Yosemite News]     [Yosemite Photos]     [KDE Users]     [Fedora Tools]     [Fedora Docs]

  Powered by Linux