The value of middlemen

The value of middlemen

Posted Aug 12, 2004 16:34 UTC (Thu) by gerv (subscriber, #3376)
In reply to: The value of middlemen by garloff
Parent article: The value of middlemen

That clause makes the code it refers to non-free; this is an extra restriction which violates section 6 of the GPL. This has several ramifications:

1) When Jorg distributes the current version of cdrecord, he is violating the GPL license *on those parts he does not own the copyright on* - because the copyright holders of those parts have not given permission for their code to be linked with non-free code.

This would allow anyone with code in cdrecord to sue him for copyright infringement.

2) Anyone who receives the code receives it under two conflicting license provisions. That means, according to section 7 of the GPL, that they may not re-redistribute the code at all, because they cannot simultaneously satisfy the GPL and the other conditions (allow unlimited freedom to modify, and stop modification of that section.)

So any Linux distributor or other party distributing 2.0a36 or above is violating the GPL, and could be sued by copyright infringement by any contributor, including Jorg.

Gerv

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