POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : What I'm learning about open source : Re: What I'm learning about open source Server Time
5 Sep 2024 17:11:15 EDT (-0400)
  Re: What I'm learning about open source  
From: clipka
Date: 26 Aug 2009 17:28:14
Message: <4a95a8ee$1@news.povray.org>
Jim Henderson schrieb:
>> (1) Code incorporated into a GPL'd program does /not/ need to be GPL'd,
>> unless the whole smash is to be distributed.
> 
> If you give the binary to your customer, then you've just distributed it, 
> making it necessary to GPL the code.

If the customer compiles the binary himself, then obviously I have /not/ 
given him the binary. Even if I am the one to press the button starting 
the compile on his system with his tools, I don't think I have.

> But if you want to modify someone else's program which is released under 
> the GPL, their express wish is that modifications must be distributed and 
> that their code needs to continue to be distributed.  Just look at all 
> the lawsuits over BusyBox.

No, their /express/ wish is only that modifications /not/ staying 
inhouse must be distributed with the rights and means to modify, 
recompile, and redistribute.

It is actually also their /express/ wish that nobody is /forced/ to 
distribute any modifications they make to the software to adapt it to 
their own needs.

The BusyBox fuss, on the other hand, wasn't about such inhouse mods, but 
about software distributed as part of an appliance. Which obviously 
doesn't normally come with the means to modify and recompile.


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