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Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?
From: |
Alfred M. Szmidt |
Subject: |
Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL? |
Date: |
Sun, 7 May 2006 12:53:43 +0200 (CEST) |
Do I have to release the patch under GPL if the patch is for a GPL
software?
Ask yourself the following, is the patch a deriviate work? If it is,
then it must be licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.
As my understanding, for example, If I modified Linux kernel, I do
not have to release it under GPL if I use it privately, unless I
make it public.
You are confusing releasing and licensing.
But how about the patch for the kernel? That is, if I generate the
patch of my modification for the Linux Kernel, and never release
the modified Linux kernel to public, however, I want to sell the
kernel patch of the Linux to customers as whatever license as I
want, but I don't want the patch under GPL for some reason. Can I?
You can charge a fee for distributing the patch (or for any free
software infact) or even a tarball of the whole Linux tree with the
patch included. What you must do though is give the people you
distribute the patch to (for a fee or not) the same rights as you
recived; i.e. you must follow the terms of the GNU GPL since the patch
is derived from a work which is licensed under the GNU GPL. So in
short, no.
I suggest that you read the GNU GPL FAQ[0], it contains many answers
to these types of questions. And I'd also like to recommend the
essays at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/, most notably `Why Software
Should Be Free' by RMS.
Cheers.
[0]: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
- Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?, Dancefire, 2006/05/05
- Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?,
Alfred M. Szmidt <=
- Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?, Bernd Jendrissek, 2006/05/05
- Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?, Byron A Jeff, 2006/05/08
- Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?, David Kastrup, 2006/05/08
- Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?, John Hasler, 2006/05/08
- Re: Do I have to release the patch for a GPL software under GPL?, Byron A Jeff, 2006/05/08