From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Victor Engmark Subject: Re: Gitbox Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:15:11 +0200 Organization: terreActive AG Message-ID: <4DA7016F.5070308@terreactive.ch> References: <4238CC86-13A5-4DB8-B8B2-BC3AA2F2DA5E@gmail.com> <4DA654D4.5040104@medialab.com> <32803572.1897.1302789371873.JavaMail.trustmail@mail1.terreactive.ch> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Chris Perkins , Joshua Juran , Daniel Searles , "Randal L. Schwartz" , Drew Northup , oleganza@gmail.com, Junio C Hamano , git@vger.kernel.org, Daniel Searles To: Martin Langhoff X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Apr 14 16:16:31 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QANLQ-0006vu-DM for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:16:28 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758828Ab1DNOQX (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:16:23 -0400 Received: from gate.terreactive.ch ([212.90.202.121]:56454 "EHLO mail.terreactive.ch" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757200Ab1DNOQW (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:16:22 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.14) Gecko/20110223 Thunderbird/3.1.8 In-Reply-To: <32803572.1897.1302789371873.JavaMail.trustmail@mail1.terreactive.ch> X-terreActive-From: victor.engmark@terreactive.ch X-Spam-Status: No Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On 04/14/2011 03:55 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote: > On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 9:58 PM, Chris Perkins wrote: >> Let's look at this at a slighty different way. Let's say someone writes >> a GUI wrapper for Git, bundles it with Git, and then offers for sale a >> new proprietary SVC system. They list off all the wonderful features >> that it has. On the back page of their website is a small 'Licenses' >> disclosure and the source code to Git comes with the download buried in >> a subdirectory. None of the users realize the software is using Git. >> >> Is that a violation of the GPL? I would say that it absolutely is. > > It absolutely is not. Lots of companies do this, and it is perfectly > kosher -- either bundle the src somewhere or offer a link to download > the source somewhere. > > While IANAL, and specifically not _your_ lawyer, I have been in this > field for >10 years, and studied law @ masters level on software > licensing. You are reading the GPL wrong, and you're not aware of > widespread industry practices around it. > > Anyone who is curious about this gitbox thing, and interested in > *facts* instead of fiction, could advance our knowledge with a simple > procedure: > > - Download the "free" version (or payfor the paid version!). It's a > zipfile, no need to hurt any Macs. > > - See if it includes the src or a link to download the src -- it will > probably be in a corner of the documentation or license. Maybe there's > an offer to provide the src in a different way, but a download link is > the usual trick. > > - Does the link work? Can you effectively get the src? > > - Does the src match the binaries you got? Excellent answer; it would be great to know in detail what would be an effective (and efficient, if possible) procedure for validating GPL compliance. Something like a cartoon guide to the GPL for developers and/or users. I don't even know if my own GPL'ed projects are within the letter of the law here. -- Victor