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OSBC: Life at the edge of the GPL

Posted Mar 28, 2009 21:36 UTC (Sat) by HenrikH (guest, #31152)
In reply to: OSBC: Life at the edge of the GPL by BrucePerens
Parent article: OSBC: Life at the edge of the GPL

But your whole example is covered in GPLv3 by this text:

>You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having
>them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with
>facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the
>terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not
>control copyright.

So your consultant would have no where to go with that argument.

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OSBC: Life at the edge of the GPL

Posted Mar 29, 2009 0:48 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Majority of software is still GPLv2 and in the case of GPLv2, these situations have not been clearly stated and it is going to remain a problem and a risky situation for quite sometime. That is unfortunate.

Yes, if only...

Posted Mar 29, 2009 2:22 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

GPL3 disambiguates a lot. Not just the consultant issue, but the API issue. GPL3 makes it clear that an API that is an Open Standard can be a demarcation between GPL3 software and other software.

Too bad the Linux kernel team isn't using GPL3. Essentially all of these issues are concerning the Linux kernel.