From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266498AbUJAU1Z (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 Oct 2004 16:27:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266486AbUJAUYH (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 Oct 2004 16:24:07 -0400 Received: from c7ns3.center7.com ([216.250.142.14]:37259 "EHLO smtp.slc03.viawest.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266308AbUJAUVz (ORCPT ); Fri, 1 Oct 2004 16:21:55 -0400 Message-ID: <415DB427.7050108@drdos.com> Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 13:46:47 -0600 From: "Jeff V. Merkey" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040510 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu Cc: jmerkey@comcast.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Possible GPL Violation of Linux in Amstrad's E3 Videophone References: <100120041740.9915.415D967600014EC2000026BB2200758942970A059D0A0306@comcast.net> <200410011934.i91JYU2t014578@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> In-Reply-To: <200410011934.i91JYU2t014578@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >Umm.. It's OK to take the GPL'ed source and make your own fork for your own >amusement. Trying to distribute it without accepting the GPL on the parts >you're shipping copies of *is* a problem. As the COPYING file says: > > 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not >signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or >distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are >prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by >modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the >Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and >all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying >the Program or works based on it. > >So you have three choices: You can accept the terms of the GPL, and comply >with them, or you can not ship those pieces covered by the GPL (basically >the entire kernel), or you can ship it in violation and wait for the hate >mail to start arriving..... > > > > And the hate mail is the only thing that will arrive. The GPL doesn't really seem to protect anyone since the copyright holders really can't do much with it. I've got a bunch of people using GPL code I've put out there in all sorts of commercial products and Can't do anything to them for failing to return changes. They can always say they didn't accept the license then convert the code into their own IP . Jeff