Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 09:03:18AM -0400, Simo Sorce wrote:
It does not, go back and read the GPL, the GPL does not apply to other
programs/binaries source even if shipped on the same medium. And a
package is a sort of convenience medium you use to ship sources.
That's certainly what is debatable. Is everything in a src.rpm
covered by the clause 3.b of the GPL.? I thought so, but I may
be wrong. Here is the clause:
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.
part of the package) and ship them. If one is GPLed the other does not
become automatically GPLed (that would be viral! But the GPL is not).
The GPL is viral as the above clause shows, the issue is: is
a src.rpm 'mere aggregation' or a 'work distributed and published...'
I thought that it wasn't mere agregation and that it had to conform
to the clause 3.b. I may be wrong. In any case I think that it could
only be a court that would definitly settle such issue.
It is mere aggregation since the other parts do not contain or derive
from any software licensed under the GPL. If I licensed my software
under say MIT X11 license then there is simply no way another license
can automatically relicense my software under any different license.
That simply does not work under copyright law. You can however produce a
derivative work if both components are under compatible licenses. The
act of putting distinct packages in the same srpm creates no such
derivative work. See if you can find any relatively well known sources
agreeing with you. IMO this is not a gray area that requires any court
case to clarify.
Rahul
PS: We really really should not be playing lawyers here. If you have a
actual case that would affect Fedora and there is no general consensus
we can ask the real lawyers. Otherwise do take this discussion off
fedora-devel.
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