GUI server tools?

[John]

Christopher Vance wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 09:58:14AM +0800, John wrote:
> 
>> I can release code under the GPL and comply with all those clauses. 
>> Can't I?
> 
> 
> Yes, of course.  You could even sell it and make money.
> 
>> The GPL imposes further restrictions on (re)distributors in the 
>> greater interest of recipients. I can't think of how it the GPL 
>> negates any of those BSD conditions.
>>
>> If my GPL product has untouched BSD-licenced files, that does not 
>> affect the licence for the product as a whole. RHL itself is GPL, but 
>> not all its contents are.
> 
> 
> I meant that people can copy the BSD bits out of your GPL product, and
> do whatever the BSD license permits.  That includes modifying and
> distributing it without the requirement to make source available.  Of
> course, they can't do that to your original GPL bits.


That's probably not true actually, since under the BSD licence I have no 
obligation to give your the source at all. If I do so, I expect I can do 
so on terms of my choosing provided that I comply with the BSD requirements.

If you don't agree to my terms, get your software from elsewhere because 
mine is available on no other terms.

I'd say it's unlikely to arise in practice, but then I think of SCO.


Remember that the GPL is a licence. It's reinforced by copyright, and 
the GPL requires me (as a second user) to grant you the same rights as I 
hold and the copyright owner has the right to enforce that. The 
originator of BSD-licenced software doesn't care whether I give you the 
source or not, whether you have it or not.

Note too that I do not believe I have any obgligaton to give (in any 
sense) your for software I've not licenced to you under the GPL. For 
example, Red Hat distributes, as part of RHEL, Gnu libc. As I understand 
the GPL, if you don't have a valid licence to RHEL then you are not 
entitled to the source code.

Nonetheless Red Hat does make its source code publicly available. I can, 
and some folk have done it, download the entire source code to RHEL and 
build it myself.

And sell it once I've sanitised it wrt trademarks.