The problem arises when you make a small change to a big project.
Suppose the project has 100 modules, and you change one or two. Then,
can you just put the source code for those two on your website and
provide a link back to where you got the stuff for the other 98? There
seems to be an opinion floating around that you have to provide the
source for ALL 100 MODULES on YOUR website in order to comply with the
terms of the GPL. If for some reason the site you are linking to
disappears, moves, whatever, and those other 98 modules become
unavailable, then YOU are in violation of the GPL.
This rather restrictive interpretation, if indeed the case, could prove
extremely burdensome to the little guy who is just fooling around to
make something more useful to himself, and then trying to be a good guy
by distributing his improvements. This would have a chilling effect on
development.
IANAL, and I don't know if this has been definitively settled one way or
the other, but it is going around the rumor mill and disturbing some people.
Jim Hartley
Steve Litt wrote:
> On Tuesday 14 November 2006 04:20 pm, Chad Perrin wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 12:06:23PM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:
>>
>>> Depends what you want to do with it. In my opinion, if you want to
>>> recruit lots of people to work on your project, GPL (version 2 -- V3 is
>>> still under discussion) is the best way to go. If you want to take it and
>>> make a modification that will be part of something you can sell and
>>> excercise "intellectual property" over, BSD and several others might be
>>> better.
>>>
>> The GPL is certainly useful, so far, for recruiting people to work on
>> your project. On the other hand, it's going to get increasingly
>> difficult to find people willing to start new projects based on
>> something created by someone else with the GPL, I think. The legal
>> minefield the GPL represents for people without much money to devote
>> will prove problematic for people who just want to distribute something
>> new that is based on something old.
>>
>
> Chad --
>
> I don't understand the problem. As I understand it, all I need to do is
> distribute all my stuff as source code, and if I do so, I've fulfilled my
> committments. What am I missing here?
>
> SteveT
>
>
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