Alexandre Oliva wrote:
You only have to agree to the GPL requirements if you need the
permissions for modification and distribution the GPL grants.
Who forfeited the opportunity to distribute gnothing under the GPL by
violating the license, then? Under your theory that the GPL imposes
restrictions on the code licensed under it, someone must have, because
the author only released lib.c as part of a GPL program, and some
licensee managed to somehow escape what you call the restrictions of
the GPL.
Who? Anyone who did something contrary to those terms. It's not a
theory, it is what the GPL says. Other licenses can exist, so you aren't
prohibited from adding them as long as they don't conflict with the GPL
or you are the owner and use either/or dual-license terms , you just
can't use those alternate terms if you agree not to.
At the very least, this shows that your allegations about the
impossibility of using code released as part of GPLed programs under
their former licenses was false.
I've always said that it is your acceptance of the GPL that prohibits
using other terms. If you agree, then you've agreed not to violate
section 2b.
Now it remains for you to realize that, even if you accept the GPL,
your faulty assumption remains incorrect.
I can't realize something that is the opposite of what it actually says.
Show me. I'm pretty sure you're getting it backwards: the case you
cited is one of GPLed library and derived program distributed under an
incompatible license.
The main work was released in source and might have been GPL'd or
dual licensed but could not because of this library dependency.
Distributed along with the main work, right?
No, RSAREF was done by someone else and was available in source with
some distribution restrictions because of export restrictions. You had
to obtain your own copy separately.
And because gmp was under GPL at the time
See? The work was derived from a GPL library. You got it backwards.
But that would not have been an issue if the other library had not been
required. Read the rest of the license and notice that that exception
for system libs wouldn't be there if third party libraries in general
were permitted.
It was impossible to re-implement the needed functions from RSAREF
because of the patent
Why couldn't that implementation be GPLed? And why couldn't it just
be left out of the main work?
It couldn't be GPLed because it wasn't part of the work and it had other
distribution restrictions. Note also that the gmp library was not
included either. End users were expected to have their own copy and
compile with it. The legal threat from the FSF came even though no
GPL-covered code was being copied as part of the work. The claim was
that the source that would require the library's functions was a
derivative work even though no copying took place.
Now for the really strange part: no one ever actually used the fgmp
library because gmp performed better. However, since it existed and
it was the linking user's choice which to use, it was no longer
possible to claim that the main work was derived from the gmp
library.
A "beautiful" case of circumvention of the spirit of the GPL and of
copyleft by legal technicalities. Way to go! NOT
Just one example of the near-infinite combinations of works that would
be useful but are made difficult or impossible by the GPL restrictions.
Having to re-implement the functionality of code that claims to be free
so an end user can link it to a source-available work is insane.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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