On 3/25/07, Paul M Foster <paulf@quillandmouse.com> wrote:
> Mario Lombardo wrote:
>
> > Can someboday help me here? Can this company/guy really do this? I
> > guess one could make a proprietary "OS" using the GPL'd Linux kernel.
> > I'm still doubtful though. Icky proprietary. Yuk!
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Ralph Hargis <ralph@serverelements.com>
> > Date: Mar 24, 2007 8:14 PM
> > Subject: Re: Other/Proprietary License??
> > To: Mario Lombardo <lombardom@users.sourceforge.net>
> >
> >
> > No mistake.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mar 24, 2007, at 2:00 PM, Mario Lombardo wrote:
> >>
> >> Message body follows:
> >>
> >> NASLite NAS Server Operating System
> >> Project Admins: serverelements
> >> Operating System: Linux
> >> License: Other/Proprietary License
> >> Category: File Sharing, Networking, Linux (Suggest?)
> >>
> >> Is this a mistake because how can this be when Linux is GPL?
> >>
>
> IANAL. But no, you cannot take GPL software and *legally* make it what
> we think of as "proprietary". If you make modifications to it, and you
> distribute the result, you must make those modifications available to
> those to whom you distribute the software. Moreover, you also implicitly
> grant them the right to distribute those modifications and any they make
> with the same software. That's the essence of the GPL.
>
> Now, like Red Hat, you *sell* your software. But you must make the
> source available so that someone else can distribute the same software,
> which is what made possible CentOS when Red Hat dropped their desktop
> and started pushing RHEL. Red Hat gets away with selling RHEL by virtue
> of their cashet as an enterprise player and by virtue of the support
> they offer. Even though CentOS as about the same (or perhaps better)
> software available for free.
>
> One of the thornier issues that arises is what happens when you bundle
> non-GPL software with GPL software, and the way in which you bundle it.
> This leads to the ongoing kernel developers' debate about proprietary
> kernel modules. The GPL apparently doesn't precisely define this area,
> so it's open to some debate.
>
> Then there are folks like Linspire and Xandros, who use the GPLed Linux
> OS, but bundle it with proprietary applications and modules and such.
> You can still get source code, except for the proprietary bits. And they
> don't make it easy to redistribute the same software. In fact, doing so
> would not only violate their agreements with the vendors supplying the
> proprietary bits, but the trademarks of companies like Xandros and
> Linspire. In a similar way, CentOS can't call what it does "Red Hat",
> even though it's all the same software. That's also the reason the name
> "Fedora" was created for "community-developed" software using the Red
> Hat code base.
>
> I wouldn't worry too much, though. The FSF is fairly vigorous about
> going after folks who attempt to taint GPL software. Mostly such cases
> are settled without litigation.
>
> Paul
>
> --
> Paul M. Foster
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Right. I'm aware he can't take a license and creatively convert it to
something else. However, I thought that building proprietary OS
software "around" a GPL'd kernel was OK? The reverse was done in days
prior to GNU/Linux being introduced. I wasn't getting where this
guy was coming from. I suppose I could just let it go, but I'm going
to keep an eye on it--being a good steward and all :)
/mario
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