Re: [LAD] GPL Violation Alert! - update

Quoting "Steve Harris" <steve@email-addr-hidden>:

> An update.
>
> I've been contacted by the company that sells this software, asking
> for retrospective permission, or something along those lines.

Hi,

I wonder if we have received the same email? The email I got did not
mention any specific license or even a type of license they would
like. At least I don't think they were asking for the plugins under a
non-GPL license. To me it sounded like they were making a proposal on
how to become compliant with GPL.

> I'm not going to grant it - I don't really think I can, the "SWH"
> plugins represent the work of far too many people for me to feel
> comfortable doing that, and it's not necessary anyway, as long as they
> stick by whatever the conditions of the licence may be. But, I don't
> actually have a clear idea of what the GPL says should happen.

GPL + plugins seems to be a really iffy combination. I myself find the
plugin interface separating the host from the plugins sufficient. The
linkage happens when the user acts to load the plugin. This runtime
linkage is never distributed, distribution being where GPL viral
clauses would kick in.

An hard-wired piece of software like Jamin on the other hand would be
more tricky. In such a case it might be necessary for the proprietary
host to be separately distributed from the plugins. Might. Who knows?

This discussion does raise a good question about which license LADSPA
and LV2 plugins should use. GPL might just be too viral and too
restrictive.

> Consensus seems to be that they need to distribute code for the
> plugins they include, but whether they are allowed to ship the plugins
> is another question.
>
> The crazy thing is that if they shipped their host in one package, and
> redistributed some LADPSA plugins (with source) in another then they
> would not be violating the licence as far as I can see - both actions
> are perfectly legitimate in isolation. However, shipping them in one
> package might be some sort of violation.

I'm too much of a pragmatic to consider the amount of packages being
delivered to be that relevant. It's like saying you can deliver
weapons to embargoed countries as long as you keep the ammunition and
hardware in different shipments.

By that slightly limping analog I'm trying to say that they can
distribute the plugins with their program and still be compatible in
what I see as fair use of my open source. As long as they clearly
point this out and release any modifications they do to the GPL'd
code, naturally.

In fact, I just scoured the .jars of a fairly popular proprietary Java
application server and I found at least one piece of GPL licensed
software in there. The company who makes this server is very open
source friendly: they have released a lot of their code as open source
projects and they are very active in developing these and other free
software projects. They feel comfortable enough distributing GPL'd
code within their proprietary server, and I'm pretty sure they have
asked their lawyers. The company is/was BEA Systems.

> That's slightly mad.

These licenses are soooo tricky. No wonder so many people release
their free software "free of charge" and without a license in sight :)

   Sampo

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Received on Wed Aug 5 16:15:06 2009