[svlug] GPL Question

[Don Marti]

begin Rick Moen quotation of Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 02:38:28PM -0800:

> I think people are mostly just conditioned by proprietary software to
> think they won't understand a software package's licence, and so
> shouldn't try.  Thus my point:  The best help you can give people with
> GPL interpretation is to convince them to _read it_.

The best thing about the GPL is that the simpler
and more generous the behavior you're trying to
find out if it's allowed, the easier the license is
to understand.

If you're just doing the regular things, it's easy.
If you're trying to figure out if you can add
XML-RPC functionality to a GPL package to make
it communicate with your proprietary add-on that
implements a patented codec in another process on a
virtual machine in Berne, you can blow out your and
your lawyers' carpal tunnels and still not know what
a judge would call "derivative".  I love it.

-- 
Don Marti
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti at zgp.org