At 2:32 PM +0900 2006-09-01, <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
Excuse me? The GPL *explicitly* approves and authorizes (not to mention implicitly encourages) modification and redistribution without conditions other than providing source. That's exactly what "license" means.
Right, and they haven't provided the source.
Has anybody at Mailman asked CPanel, Plesk, or Apple for source and been refused? Or one of their customers, and been refused because they were under NDA? If we haven't asked, how can we bitch?
I don't know about CPanel or Plesk, but I'd be willing to bet that they would not be willing to provide the source code to their changes to anyone, although a knowledgeable person could extract the source code differences by comparing what is shipped by the commercial vendor against our code, although it might take some work to figure out which version of our code they should be comparing against.
I'm pretty sure that I know what the answer would be from Apple. You see, the primary problem is that the Server Group is totally and completely unresponsive to their own high-paying Platinum-account customers (i.e., major Universities and businesses with thousands or tens of thousands of machines), and likewise completely unresponsive even to internal people at Apple who are working in other groups.
You'd have to ask Barry as to whether or not he has actually contacted these groups to ask them to contribute their code changes back to the community, or if anyone has gone to the FSF lawyers to have them send a letter requesting that the company in question honor their obligations under the GPL.
I just don't have the answers to the questions you're asking me.
Moreover, I don't think that it's reasonable for you to respond to me in this manner. What have I ever done to you? When have I ever said anything that would lead you to believe that I would have the kinds of answers you require to these extremely loaded questions you're asking?
If you want to get into a diatribe about licensing, please be aware that I'm a BSD guy, and I've found myself surrounded by a bunch of GPL types, so license-wise I've tended to say pretty quiet.
But if you want to argue the finer points of the GPL with someone, my response is going to be that none of this would be a problem if they'd just use a BSD-like license instead and then be done with it.
As such, I'm not going to be your foil for your GPL holy war, and if you want that then you would be better off looking elsewhere.
-- Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755Founding Individual Sponsor of LOPSA. See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.