Comments on: GPL Clarification Continued

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:38:58 +0000

I don’t have any plans to create a Mambo module at this time. If someone wanted to fund the development, I’d probably start looking into it again.

By: stani

stani — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:30:22 +0000

Hi,

I’m interested, how this story finish? Will you adapt your code to mambo?

We are now in similar situation (in fact - opposite as our code is GPLed) : someone ask to adapt it, we read the mambo faq, …

By: Lawyer

Lawyer — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 19:14:35 +0000

1) True.
2) A license is a contract. There is another kind of “license” in the real property sense that is not necessarly
3) Yes. You can only grant rights for actions that you have the right to exclude under law.
4) The GPL become applicable to any code that is a “derivative work” of the GPL’ed work. Personally, I do not think that distribution on the same medium makes your work a derivative work of the GPL’ed work. Separate distribution does not even allow this question to arise.
Eben Moglen is a very smart lawyer, but may be a bit biased when it comes to the GPL.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:32:37 +0000

Perhaps you mean ‘a license is not a contract’? No one claimed that a contract is a license.

By: vruz

vruz — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:27:48 +0000

WRONG !!! WRONG !! WRONG !!

1) The Linux Kernel IS NOT under the GPL.

2) A Contract is NOT a license, ask a decent lawyer

3) There doesn’t have to be ANY caselaw for a LICENSE to work, if you are the copyright owner of your creation, YOU can GRANT any rights you see fit to your licencees.

4) You can distribute any GPL code as long as you make the sources of that GPL code available, it doesn’t have to be in the same CD, it can be online too or upon request, and your code doesn’t “catch” GPL because of it residing on the same disc/disk drive, suggesting that is hilarious.

Triple check your sources, this lawyer is clueless.

If you feel like learning from
Eben Moglen, the Harvard PHd. behind the FSF knows a bit or two about the GPL, at least more than “Lawyer”.

best,
vruz

By: Carthik

Carthik — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 04:15:35 +0000

Alex, you might want to read this post, especially the comments by danyl.

By: Carthik

Carthik — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 20:13:22 +0000

Interesting, especially the part about there being no precedents.

Also :
Lawyer: Therefore, if Mambo says in their FAQ that you can distribute your extensions under whatever license you want (and they own the copyright), then you are free to do so — they have modified their contract with you (the GPL)

If I were the author of a module, I would make it a point to ask Mambo to put the special exclusion clause in their license document, especially since there is no precedent, and you never know which way the axe will fall.

By: Gabe

Gabe — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 17:35:28 +0000

Yeah that’s what weirded me out about the whole FAQ quote is that it is implicitly referring to compiled languages where you have certain natural divisions that don’t exist in interpreted code. It gets even weirder considering that programs written in interpreted languages automatically are distributed with the source code so you can’t distinguish between source and binary.

It’s always refreshing to hear a lawyer who’s clued into the technical aspects.