GPL compliance

[Gary W. Swearingen]

Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> writes:

> Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
>
>>  Do you think you
>> do not need Red Hat's permission to use their parts of Linux in your
>> Ubuntu OS according to each and every term of the GPL, including the
>> source requirements which include the magic statement option?
>
> Hm, would he need Red Hats permission? Even if the source code from
> Red Hat is released under GPL? Doesn't Red Hat automatically grant
> permission to redistrbute their code, when they licensed the code under
> GPL?

He needs their permission, which he can have by accepting and obeying
the terms of their licenses.  From the typically-verbose clause 5:
   
    However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
    distribute the Program or its derivative works.
    ...
    Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work
    based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this
    License to do so, and all its terms and conditions...

(It's really frustrating to have to discuss such simple statements of
basic concepts.  Oh well.  "It too shall pass.")

>> priority to all the rest.  Again, the law
>
> BTW: What law? My law? Your law? Or the law of a recipient? What
> I'm trying to say: On the world, there's more than just *a* law,
> so it's wrong to talk about *the* law, as long as there's not a
> world government.

That's a very good point, especially when I forgot that the Daniel
wrote from Spain (IIRC).  I guess it's my nasty ol' Yankie hubris to
assume the GPL users are worring about US laws.  I'm sorry to say that
I have no idea how "furineers" deal with such things.  Nor have I ever
worried about the legal issues involved in using foreign-owned IP.

More FUD, better discussed elsewhere.  Anyone have a good link to an
article or discussion on this?