Gordon Messmer wrote:
Any code under a compatible license can be combined with GPL code.
The GPL applies to the "work as a whole", but does not remove the
license from the other parts which are under compatible licenses.
They can be removed from the GPLed work and reused under their
original license, as protected by copyright law, and as outlined by
the link above.
That may be what the link says. It's not what the license actually says.
It *is* what the license says. It's just not what you *think* the
license says. You're confusing your interpretation of what the license
says, for what the license says.
Which part of this do you imagine you can selectively ignore?
"b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License."
"This License" includes "this section"... There's no room to interpret
that as saying "or some other license you found on some web page" or to
not include parts of the work that happen to be in separate source
files. Yes, you might get way with ignoring it in some circumstances
but it would be dishonest at best if you've agreed to the license terms
first.
It says it does within the distribution as a whole. If the terms
don't apply would it mention the work-as-a-whole at all?
The terms do apply to the "work as a whole". When a piece of code under
a compatible license is removed from the work, it is no longer a part of
the whole, and the original license applies.
But if you agreed to the GPL in order to be able to share the whole
work, you've agreed to apply its terms to all parts. You may get away
with not doing that, but then you are not following the terms you agreed to.
You do not, and can not, change the license on software that you didn't
write.
Per section 2b, you cannot distribute any of a GPL'd work unless you
apply exactly the GPL terms to all of it. Other copies of that existing
work would not be affected, of course, and there might be subsequent
circumstances where someone did not have to agree to the GPL on a
received copy and could selectively pick a piece out under its original
terms.
You do not change the license on code by including it in a GPLed
work. Any code that you include, written by someone else, remains under
their license.
If the license does not permit distributing under exactly the GPL terms,
you can't include it at all. Otherwise you'd be (sensibly...) permitted
to include any code you were allowed to redistribute. But that's not true.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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