Re: [LAU] [LAA] [ANN] gigedit 0.1.0

On Wed, 2007-10-17 at 19:25 +0200, Arnold Krille wrote:
>
> I am not a lawyer, but neither the COPYING-file nor the (randomly
> picked)
> src/linuxsampler.cpp state anything but gplv2 (or later) for the
> license.
> The README states something about getting the authors authorization to
> use the
> app in commercial software or hardware. While I think this is some
> legit
> modification because they don't want their work to be used
> commercially
> without them knowing, I don't think this rule applies as they probably
> didn't
> ask all the participating authors (and the AUTHORS file states quite a
> few)
> for their permission to change the license.

This additional restriction (no commercial use without explicit
permissions from the authors) has two problems:

1) It means that the software is not free as defined by the Free
Software Foundation and GNU Project. It goes against Freedom 2 of the
Free Software Definition[1]. A practical example of the problems this
creates is that a Linux distribution such as Fedora can not include
LinuxSampler because they place no restriction on end users making
copies and selling them - is this commercial software in the eyes of the
Linux Sampler developers?

2) The inclusion of the additional restriction means that LinuxSampler
cannot be distributed under a licence that is called the GPL. The GPL
FAQ[2] is quite clear on this. Additionally the FAQ states that
software distributed under the GPL + restrictions cannot be linked to
libraries under the GPL because the new licence (GPL + restrictions) is
almost certainly incompatible with the GPL.

Keith.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL

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Received on Thu Oct 18 00:15:03 2007