Yeah, that could be ugly. But given that the Linux Kernel is already GPL, that
genie is already out of the bottle.
On Wednesday 15 November 2006 12:37 pm, Jim Hartley wrote:
> 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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