On Saturday 02 April 2005 12:46, Devdas Bhagat wrote:

On 02/04/05 11:39 +0500, sherlock@vsnl.com wrote:

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Nope. You are eliminating the case of derived work. It does concern itself with binaries too. A binary is a derived work of the source - as are modifications, bugfixes, enhancements etc.

The GPL only states that in case of derived work, the source code must be made available. Like I said, the GPL is only concerned with ensuring that source code is always available for distributed GPLed software.

No. Here is part of the preamble "Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it."

It clearly separates software and source code for the software, and allows you to access and distribute both. The para also makes it amply clear about trying to remove those rights - contract or no contract. Infact RH cannot sign a contract abrogating your rights as granted to you by the developers and is a sitting duck for any developer wanting to sue if they have signed such contracts.

Please note IANAL.

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Therefore the terms of the gpl apply to the binaries too. Also "distributing" includes putting a binary into a flash rom and sticking it inside your gizmo and selling the gizmo. (I had too do some talking with some distributors of embedded products here on this issue.) This action (selling the gizmo) is distribution and requires gpl compliance. Therfore source code must be made

Right. However, the effort of putting the binary into the Gizmo is chargable. As is the hardware.

Sure. I am not disputing the right to charge for the first copy (the wrapper is really superfluos), I am disputing anyones right to restrict the rights avaialable to me under the gpl.

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available. You can make copies of the binary hex file from the prom and use as you deem fit without any copyright violation. Even if "opening this parcel means that you agree" to whatever. The reason is that the gpl licence has given you a right the moment the act of giving and taking takes place. Adding wrappers

• physical or software does not change the fact of distribution.

There is no way that anyone (RH, Novell, Microsod whoever) can circumvent this - thank god.

But RedHat is not trying to circumvent this.

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Linux distributors take the GPLed source, package it, build it into binaries, and test those. That is a service. RedHat et al charge for that service.

Since someone has paid for the first copy RH have already recieved what ever they deemed fit for it. Subsequent copies does not involve RH in any way at all.

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When you "buy" RedHat ES/AS versions, you are paying for their compiling and testing services, not for the software itself. This _support_ purchase is a contract, which states that you may not install the software from those binaries on more than one system.

That is a violation of the gpl and will not stand in a law court.

No it isn't. The RedHat contract has been FSF approved. RedHat _charges_ for their effort in building a binary. They are saying that they will build a binary for you provided that you do not redistribute it... .

RH cannot do that. Links to FSF approval of the contract please. Couldnt find any on the FSF site (so maybe more smoke from RH). RH has a copyright on the distro. That is sure. But I am permitted by the gpl to copy binaries and install and use and obtain the source and do as i please subject to the terms of the gpl without paying a paisa to RH. Note in the case of Suse the YAST tool is not gpl compliant. So if you copy Suse for sale you will have to remove Yast. No problem if you give it free tho.

What redhat may imply in their contract is that they will not support more than the number of machines stipulated in the contract and that you are prohibited from installing the distro on other machines and obtain service from redhat on the additional machines.

This is a separate argument from the GPL itself. The contract is for the effort that RedHat puts into building the distribution.

To put it another way, RedHat provides binaries as a service to its customers. They charge for that service. They have an additional clause in the service contract that states that you may not redistribute the binaries. This is part of the service contract, and does not constitute a violation of the GPL itself.

It does. The GPL preamble above is clear as light.

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I have not read the contract but if you have one please post it. We can takeon redhat on this. The binary IS a derived work of the source. If the source is gpld so is the binary.

Distributing the binary would be a violation of your support contract. It is not a GPL violation.

Maybe RH can terminate your support. But they cannot stop you from copying and redistributing after stripping the logos.

This is in the area of contract law, not copyright law. RedHat does not impose additional restrictions on redistribution via copyright/EULAs. It does impose restrictions via contract, a contract which you willingly enter into when you purchase support from RedHat.

The contract itself is probably illegal as RH (or anyone else) does not hold the rights on individual programs and would have to obtain rights from individual contributors to allow them to override the gpl. Which is what dual licence is all about. The economics of such an excercise is ofcourse a different story. They cannot impose restrictions by contract stuff released under the gpl as is expressly stated in the preamble.

I am quite sure about this as i follow GL daily and the gpl was discussed ad nauseum. Once released under GPL, nobody can by contract / DMCA or any means change the terms.

rgds jtd