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- From: friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman)
- Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
- Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
- Date: 8 Jan 93 02:27:06
- Organization: Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave. Cambridge, MA 02139
- Lines: 53
- Message-ID: <FRIEDMAN.93Jan8022706@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
- References: <9LPywB26w165w@mantis.co.uk> <1993Jan7.112550.22626@uwasa.fi>
- <1iik7pINN4qf@shelley.u.washington.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu
- In-reply-to: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu's message of 8 Jan 93 01:09:13 GMT
-
- In article <1iik7pINN4qf@shelley.u.washington.edu> tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
- >There is also the possibility that they would simply arrange things so that
- >the source you get is not all you need. Suppose, for example, someone wanted
- >to use GNU Emacs in a proprietary editor for Microsoft Windows. What would
- >stop them from doing the following:
- >
- > 1. Find the places where they want to make proprietary changes to
- > GNU Emacs.
- >
- > 2. Rewrite those parts so that they depend on a DLL (dynamic link
- > library) to perform the functions that they want to do
- > proprietarily (sp?).
- >
- > 3. Distribute the modified GNU Emacs under GPL.
- >
- > 4. Implement a proprietary DLL, which is not distributed under
- > GPL.
- >
- >Is this a violation of GPL?
-
- Yes. The GPL says, in part:
-
- 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
- of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
- distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
- above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
-
- ...
-
- 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.
-
-
- (here the "no charge" refers to a licensing fee, not a distribution fee)
-
- There are two reasons for this.
-
- First, a general one. If we permitted company A to make a propriatary
- file, and company B to distribute GNU software linked with that file,
- the effect would be to make a hole in the GPL big enough to drive a
- truck through. This would be carte blanche for withholding the source
- code for all sorts of modifications and extensions to GNU software.
-
- Giving all users access to the source code is one of our main
- goals, so this consequence is definitely something to avoid.
-
- More directly, the versions of GNU software linked with proprietary
- libraries would not really be free software as we intend the term--they
- would not come with full source code that enables users to change and
- recompile the program.
-
-