Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 14:40:31 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com> Cc: hiten@uk.FreeBSD.org, Chris Mason <mason@suse.com>, Josh MacDonald <jmacd@CS.Berkeley.EDU>, Parity Error <bootup@mail.ru>, freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG, reiserfs-dev@namesys.com Subject: Re: [reiserfs-dev] Re: metadata update durability ordering/soft updates Message-ID: <3C966CDF.25A7A379@mindspring.com> References: <20020317225759.82774.qmail@web21109.mail.yahoo.com> <3C95ACBA.4040108@namesys.com> <3C95B838.F8ECE39A@mindspring.com> <3C95C8C3.7080803@namesys.com>
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Hans Reiser wrote: > >>You can port it for free if you port it to a GPL'd OS (or port the OS to > >>the GPL). > > > >Or you can port it and then use it on any OS you want, so long > >as you are an end user, and not a company who sells OSs, so > >long as you don't redistribute the result... the GPL doesn't > >kick in until you attempt to exercise distribution rights. > > This is often said, but not what the license language says. I think it > is wishful thinking. If you distribute, you must make it public. That > includes FAPSI, NSA, anyone. Precisely. So you can port it, and the result of the port is still GPL'ed. At that point, you can treat it like any other GPL'ed code that the original vendor had ported. You do the port, buy you don't distribute it, so you are not required to make sources available. You merely use the port internally. Alternately, you do the port, you distribute it, but you do not distribute it linked against your proprietary code. You make the end user do the linking, if they want to use it. By optioning it, you are off the hook for making your proprietary source code available, but the end user is not. Since the end user never had your source code, the end user can not distribute the combined code further. > >You could also, for example, build a company that charged to > >store data on the GPL'ed ReiserFS, ported to some proprietary > >OS, and as long as you never sold your hosting platforms to > > ^sold^distributed the software for Yes. The sale implies distribution. THe sale could be in the context of selling the hosting platforms to end users, or selling the company that owns the hosting platforms, such that the assets become the property of another company, and the original company is not maintained as a legal fiction. If you sell the comany to another company, you are distributing the assets of the first company, including the software, to another company. To avoid GPL'ing the code code, you must cause them to relink, just like the end user case above. If you don't, you risk patches to the proprietary code made after the link becoming GPL'ed, which would then cause all of your proprietary code to be GPL'ed, even if you distributed it with those patches, seperately from the original GPL'ed code. This is a technicality which I think most people would ignore, since such sales occur "under cover". -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message
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