Re: GPLv3 comedy unfolding -- Comment 3380: Combining propietary and GPL code

[Alexander Terekhov]

http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/summarydecision.html?filename=<%%20gplv3-draft-2%20%>&id=3380

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Comment 3380: Combining propietary and GPL code 

This Comment is resolved by:

This Comment is part of the discussion on:

Regarding the text: Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not
cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate

In section: gpl3.distribmod.p5.s2

Submitted by: user on 2007-06-15 at 01:47 EDT

0 agree: 

noted by user on 2007-06-15 at 01:47 EDT: 

Lawrence Rosen has stated that this allows the combination of propietary
code and GPLV3 code. Now he may be absolutely and totally wrong on that
matter but his statement casts doubt on this provision. It is aboslutely
paramount that there is absolutely no doubt about the fact that you can
not combine propietary and GPL(V3) code at all. That goes against the
central design choice of the GNU GPL as a copyleft license. There must
be ABSOLUTELY no doubt at all, among ANY reasonably thinking human being
about that, at all. Period.

This needs to be reqorded so that there cannot be anyt such doubt what
so ever.

collapse children
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See aslo:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=331
(GPLv3 myth#2: You can’t mix GPL software with other software)

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Myth 2: You can’t mix GPL software with other software.

False. According to experts in open source licenses this is possible,
especially with the wording in the latest GPLv3 draft.

[...]

In his “Comments on GPLv3” essay, open source attorney Lawrence Rosen
writes that he believes this clause can even be used to combine GPL
licensed code “modules” with code from other licenses even in the same
program, though I think that’s a bit of a stretch. When I told Larry
that he responded:

| Stretch away. If you mean the term “module” is a “smallest unit of
| compiled object code,” then perhaps it is not copyrightable at all. 
| But in the general sense I meant that word as applied to larger,
| commercially and computationally significant copyrightable works, 
| such as “a database module” or a “file system module,” that contain
| significant copyrightable expressive content. If those
| independently-written copyrighted modules are used in a collective 
| work (a larger computer system), and both licenses permit verbatim 
| copies to be aggregated in that way, then I consider that a permitted 
| collective work. There is nothing derivative about it (unless, 
| perhaps, the resulting larger work is intended as a replacement 
| database or file system module for the originals, but that’s a 
| factual issue relating to derivative works analysis).

I don’t agree with this argument because the combination would be
possible not just with Apache licensed code, but with code covered by
any license, even proprietary, closed source code. I don’t think RMS
(Richard Stallman) would agree either. To this, Larry replied:

| He doesn’t. But he wrote GPLv3 and he must now live by the words in 
| his license.
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LOL.

regards,
alexander.

--
"Live cheaply," he said, offering some free advice. "Don't buy a house,
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to spend all your time making money to pay for them."

        -- Free Software Foundation's Richard Stallman: 'Live Cheaply'