Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!sean
From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: v20i030:  Command-line editor with predictions, Part02/04
Message-ID: <12988@s.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 89 18:24:45 GMT
References: <2013@prune.bbn.com> <2466@munnari.oz.au>
Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 32

ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe) writes:

|This program includes a copy of David MacKenzie's "Getopt for GNU".
|That is covered by the infamous copyleft, which states in part
|(quoted from the posting)

|> X    b) cause the whole of any work that you distribute or publish,
|> X    that in whole or in part contains or is a derivative of this
|> X    program or any part thereof, to be licensed at no charge to all
|> X    third parties on terms identical to those contained in this
|> X    License Agreement (except that you may choose to grant more
|> X    extensive warranty protection to third parties, at your option).

The GNU usage license (which is probably invalid as a license) also states:

   Mere aggregation of another independent work with the Program (or its
   derivative) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring
   the other work under the scope of these terms.

It could be argued that this is what is being done.

In any case, if anyone thinks that the author's code is going to forcibly
come under the GNU license because he included GNU getopt, or that GNU can
collect damages, then they are fooling themselves. The very best they could
do is require him not to publish their stuff, and I seriously doubt they
could get a court to order that.

Sean
-- 
***  Sean Casey          sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean
***  Copyright 1989 by Sean Casey. Only non-profit redistribution permitted.
***  ``So if you weight long enough, you'll get your packets, right?''