Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider

Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider

Posted Nov 14, 2006 2:17 UTC (Tue) by MarionR3 (guest, #7317)
In reply to: Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider by jayorke
Parent article: Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider

The Problem begins with the agreement, the GPL does not allow any
developer or user of GPL code to form licenses or agreements which
restrict the rights of any other potential developer or user of the
software to benefit from the software as long as they do not try to
impose restrictions to the rights of others in the pursuit of similar
uses. Such as a database software I know of was developed by a company
for specific use, and release under the GPL. The company does not
restrict commercial or personal use of the software (i.e. you can use it
at home or you can use it in a business) as long as the original
copyrights, and licenses remain in place. If a company or individual
using the software however try to claim the software, or add extensions
to the software as their own the license makes it clear, that they would
not be the original copyright holder, and have no right to the software,
nor the extensions that they have added.

On another note Microsoft's cooperation with Novell permits individual
use, but prevents commercial use - a GPL no-no, this causes a conflict as
the license indicates that the user, or distributor is a benefactor of
the software, and all it's enhancements. Use is free to anyone for any
purpose so long as all copyrights remain in place, and no infringement on
others rights to benefit from the use of the software takes place.

The problem with this deal is that Novell, in similar fashion to SCO I
hate to say claims that it as a distributor of linux has some right to
form an agreement outside of the GPL to benefit from this software, in
their case commercially, and to restrict the use of the software to other
commercial users - nope can't do that!

Because the GPL states, that anyone has the freedom to redistribute the
software which is under the GPL as long as they do not restrict the
rights of the eventual recipient of same. This is where the problem
comes in - I would site the GPL, but I'll link to it so as not to take it
out of context (it asks you to not change it anyway - so let's keep with
the spirit, eh?).

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

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