Re: [possibly urgent] "GPL violation made easy" by Borland

[Free Software Foundation]

Hello.

> First greetings to the US recipients, we at the FSF Europe are doing 
> quite well :-)

Good to know :)

> Borland, a well-known vendor of proprietary development software, 
> publishes its Delphi RAD Tool as "Kylix" for GNU/Linux platforms. There 
> are so-called "professional" versions with more features, costing heavy 
> money.
> 
> The potential problem is the "open" edition, which allows you to use a 
> stripped-down (downloadable) version of Kylix to create exclusively GPL 
> software.

I heard about that. I suppose it has a shrinkwrap license, otherwise I
doubt that requirement can be enforced.

> But development with Kylix is usually very closed tied to the usage and 
> linking of its component library [...]

> Besides that "old" Qt problem, the Kylix license is even more obnoxious 
> than common proprietary licensing, because it allows Borland to audit 
> you whether you have paid the right amount of money (possibly through 
> your network!) and forbids you to take class-action suits against Borland.

That's pretty bad.

> Questions to the legal experts: Having applications link to that library 
> - isn't that legally problematic?

I think it might be. However address@hidden is not run by legal
experts, it's a service run by volunteers.

> I doubt that we can talk to these people seriously.

Please don't be prevented against companies. They are  usually willing
to talk and understand the issues we raise. See for example
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html .

> It would be btter to put out a warning on the FSF and FSF Europe
> pages to show that threat to free software and remind people to only
> use free software to write new free software.

Reminding about the problem would be good. About the "threat", we'd
better get the details right before taking public actions.

> Thanks for your patience and time,

Thanks for your note about the problem.

/alessandro
-- 
Alessandro Rubini,
Licensing Question Volunteer,
Free Software Foundation