Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 18:58:43 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Trevor Johnson <trevor@jpj.net>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman now claims authorship of Linux Message-ID: <20010419185843.N88142@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <200104191653.JAA03074@usr08.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 04:53:12PM %2B0000 References: <20010419065023.A5664-100000@blues.jpj.net> <200104191653.JAA03074@usr08.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert said on Apr 19, 2001 at 16:53:12: > > The original program must have been brilliantly written, if it was worth > > spending so much time on the improvements. If the only way to get revenue > > from it is by selling binary copies and keeping the source secret, then > > the GPL would be an impediment. Perhaps the original author would be > > willing to offer you the program under some other conditions, perhaps in > > exchange for a share of the rewards. Wouldn't that be fair? > > Except that he can't, since those 40 lines are a change to SQUID, > which is under the GPL, and if he offers them at all, he has to > offer the source code. If he's the sole author, he can offer it to you under a different license. If he's not the sole author, he has no right to offer it to you anyway. > That's really the point: under the GPL, there's no way to amortize > R&D costs on brilliant additions resulting in derivative works. Even if you were right: so? With closed-source, there's no way to *make* derivative works. And with a BSD-style license, the original author doesn't benefit if you make your brilliant addition, which (in your scenario) presumably couldn't have been made without the original code. (If it can be done without that code, go ahead and do it. Why do you want to benefit from the work of the SQUID authors?) Besides, you *can* dual-license, if you can get the agreement of all the copyright owners. - Rahul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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