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The GPL Is a License, not a Contract
The GPL Is a License, not a Contract
Posted Dec 4, 2003 9:01 UTC (Thu) by piman (subscriber, #8957)In reply to: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract by proski
Parent article: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract
There are a number of software authors that use the GPL without understanding it, or copyright law. The XFoil author seems to be one of these. In fact, all 3 of those are conditions above and beyond what the GPL requires; the result is that XFoil is licensed inconsistently, and probably can't be distributed and modified at all (except by the original author).
So, Prof. Moglen is correct that the GPL can never be a contract; the problem is that XFoil isn't under the GPL, but some inconsistent GPL+otherstuff license.
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