Comments on: New insights into the GPL vs. MySQL storage engine debates

By: New insights into the GPL vs. MySQL storage engine debates | DBMS2 … at The WordPress GPL Debate

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:32:02 +0000

[...] View the original article: New insights into the GPL vs. MySQL storage engine debates | DBMS2 … [...]

By: Yet more on the GPL, WordPress themes, and the implications for MySQL storage engines | DBMS2 -- DataBase Management System Services

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:53:59 +0000

[...] debate I wrote about a few days ago over whether or not the WordPress theme called Thesis needed to be GPLed has been resolved in practice – it will be. More precisely, the parts that WordPress [...]

By: Curt Monash

Curt Monash — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:09:03 +0000

Craig,

Thanks for the Linux info! Not an area I know on any level of detail.

By: Craig Goodrich

Craig Goodrich — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:29:36 +0000

It should also be pointed out that proprietary hardware drivers have been written to run as modules of the Linux kernel for many years, causing grumbling among kernel developers but no legal action.

The most famous and widespread example is the NVidia graphic card driver. NV won’t release the hardware programming specs due to the cutthroat competition in the graphic chip market, but they regularly release X drivers which consist of a layer of source code which links to a proprietary binary library. FSF types don’t like this much, but it’s the fastest X server on the planet short of high-dollar graphics boxes.

By: Craig Goodrich

Craig Goodrich — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:17:34 +0000

The difference between the GPL and the LGPL (originally Library GPL, now Lesser GPL) is precisely in the area of linking. According to the FSF (i.e. rms), if for example Linux’ libc.so were under the GPL, it would be essentially illegal to write non-GPLed software for Linux, since nearly all Unix-like code depends on the C library. The LGPL says you can link anything you want to this code, but if you change the library code itself, the changes fall under the GPL — which is reasonable.

Personally, I go along with Linus himself, who has expressed the opinion that software licenses are more like moral exhortations than like legal contracts.

By: Curt Monash

Curt Monash — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:30:52 +0000

Mike,

Is it your contention that every app that invokes Linux should trigger a payment to the developers of Linux? Even commercial operating system vendors don’t demand that.

As for the dual layers thing — GPL extremists dismiss it as ineffectual, at least in the MySQL storage engine case. I forget exactly why, but it’s in comments somewhere on this blog.

Best,

CAM

By: Mike Pilcher

Mike Pilcher — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:12:35 +0000

My view would be that if you create software that invokes GPL code you should have to pay a royalty to organization that manages the underlying code. Given that would be against the principle of the GPL then you have to offer some value to the community. Would it be overly complex to create your software in two layers, a layer that invokes the GPL code which would be subject to GPL and then a layer that was commercial and proprietary. That way their is created value to the community and value to the developer. If perhaps the GPL management layer had to be at least a certain percentage of any overall solution you could ensure the community benefited in line with the commercial value.

By: My view of intellectual property | The Monash Report

My view of intellectual property | The Monash Report — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:49:18 +0000

[...] a recent comment I pooh-poohed an expansive interpretation of the GPL, even as I supported the GPL in core [...]

By: Curt Monash

Curt Monash — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 06:12:41 +0000

If I take a GPL program, change a few lines, and try to sell that, the GPL stops me. That’s clearly a derivative work.

So let’s say that the virality of the GPL is much less useful that Richard Stallman et al. like to think.

IANAL and all that, of course. But basically, the GPL is a big con job and intimidation racket, which has been allowed to persist in large part because the intentions of the perpetrators seem pretty pure. To the extent somebody — e.g. hypothetically Oracle — tries to use the same tactics in pursuit of normal profit, greed and self-interest, I hope the courts would slap them down hard, and I’m available as an expert witness to that side of the case.

By: Bill66

Bill66 — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:50:37 +0000

If integrating some code into a GPL software to build a new software wasn’t a derivative, then LGPL would be useless, the virality of GPL would be useless, all we would need would be BSD licenses.

Your statements aren’t applicable on Thesis WordPress theme because WordPress themes and WordPress aren’t different programs. It’s not because they are in different files that that they are different programs. WordPress and the theme it’s configured to use are a unique program. If you remove some of the theme executable files, then WordPress itself doesn’t work.