From: Anatoly Vorobey (mellon_at_nonexisting.hamakor.org.il)
Date: Tue 24 Aug 2004 - 16:41:06 IDT
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:07:33PM +0300, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004, Anatoly Vorobey wrote about "Re: GPL and commercial application":
> > you distribute XYZ++ at all. If you sell the *rights* to XYZ++ to your
> > client (as opposed to a license to use XYZ++), you pass on those
> > obligations to them as well, and now *they* cannot distribute any
> > work based on XYZ++ without also distributing it under the GPL.
>
> This is exactly what I said. These extra "obligations" are in effect a
> license you must have your client agree to. This means that you cannot
> create just any license you want for XYZ++ (in addition to the GPL) -
> any new license you invent must have parts of the GPL (like the parts on
> future derivatives also being released as GPL) stuck into it, and in essence
> it can't be too different from the GPL itself.
When I was referring to distributing under licenses different from the
GPL, I meant licenses to use the software, not rights to the software.
To describe a silly yet hopefully illuminating example, I claim that I
can basically say this to my client: "You can purchase my software
for $100 under the Hop license, which requires you to hop 50 times on
your right leg before your first use of the software. Oh, and you can
also, the minute you obtain the software (either by paying me the
$100 under the Hop license, or by downloading it for free from this
here website of mine) use it under the terms of the GPL, circumventing
the Hop license if you so desire."
The Hop license doesn't have the GPL stuck into it, it's just that the
user has a freedom to use the GPL instead of the Hop if they so desire,
and I also have an obligation to inform them of that fact.
I completely agree with you on the other issue of selling the software
(not the license to use it, but the software itself, all of the rights
to it) and the impossibility of subsequent circumvention of the GPL by
relicensing.
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