[fpc-pascal] Notice: Possible copyright infringements in FPC code base

[Vinzent Hoefler]

On Thursday 17 January 2008 11:54, Jonas Maebe wrote:
> On 17 Jan 2008, at 08:02, Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
> > On Wednesday 16 January 2008 17:49, Roberto Padovani wrote:
> >> Given that I don't have Delphi, suppose that company X ask me to
> >> make a software for them. I might give them the software, with
> >> full source code and a GPL licence note every here and there, and
> >> ask money for the _design_ of the software, instead of the
> >> software itself.
> >
> > Another misunderstanding of the GPL. Of course you are allowed to
> > charge money for your software.
> >
> > But given it is GPL your customer may decide to redistribute the
> > source,
> > as you gave him explicit permission with the GPL to do so. It would
> > simply put all your other code under GPL, too.
>
> And that is yet another misunderstanding of the GPL: it would *not*
> automatically make all the other code of that program GPL.

Well, well, I didn't say *that*. But with "and a GPL licence note every 
here and there" I would have assumed it, of course.

> If you do not license the rest of the source code under the GPL (or
> under a GPL-compatible license), you are simply infringing on the
> copyright of the author(s) of the GPL code: your are using that code
> in a way which is not allowed by the GPL.

Ok, yes. If you read it this way. OTOH it said "with full source code", 
so as a customer I'd "assume" at least, that everything is GPLed here, 
even if it does not say so explicitely in each single source file.

And even then, you would be allowed to give it to the customer as is, as 
you're providing the full source code as required by the GPL.

> In any case, whoever receives a program containing a mixture of GPL
> and GPL-incompatible code, is not allowed to further distribute it
> either (because he would infringe on the copyright of author(s) of
> the GPL code just as much as the initial distributor).

Sorry, but that's not true per se. I *am* allowed to use GPL code in an 
internal project without redistributing it.

Ok, the next paragraph can be considered quite cynical, so if you don't 
like, don't read it. AFAICS I am allowed to use GPL code in a bomb's 
flight control program and I am certainly not required to distribute 
the source code to the enemy together with the bomb, am I?


Vinzent.