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Re: The worst that can happen to GPLed code


From: John Hasler
Subject: Re: The worst that can happen to GPLed code
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 17:42:49 -0000
User-agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) Emacs/21.2 (gnu/linux)

Chris Jefferson writes:
> I'd quite like the GPL, but a number of my friends would perfer a "you
> can read the code, but you can't distribute altered versions" style
> licence.

The latter would result in your program never getting into any Linux
distributions.

> Some example thoughts we had..

> 1) Someone could just take our source, remove all copyright notices from
>   both the source and displayed when the app is run and put their own on

This would be a violation of the GPL, but then it'd be a violation of your
"you can read the code, but you can't distribute altered versions" license
as well.  No license can prevent people from doing things you don't want
them to do.  It can only give you the right to sue them for it.


> 2) Someone could take our source, make minor alterations to it, and then
>   redistribute it without admiting they'd changed it and leaving our
>   copyright notices intact (both in source and in the help/about box),
>   making it look like we wrote the evil version.

If the version was truly evil this would be libel, and perhaps fraud as
well.

I've never heard of this happening.

> 1) We have to distribute (if asked of course) a copy of the source of all
>   libraries, even if they are publicly available (but not installed by
>   default)

Not if they are dynamically linked.  If they are statically linked you must
comply with the library license.

> 2) We can't write code that depends on VC.net as it's compiler (say, not
>    that we have any yet), as people wouldn't then be able to compile it
>    themselves without buying VC.net.

You can.

The GPL is a grant of rights from you to the recipients of copies of your
work.  It tells them that you grant them the right to distribute copies and
derivatives on the condition that they comply with your requirements.  Thus
it places no requirements at all on you.
-- 
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI

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