Can Java code EVER be GPLd, at all?

[Jules Bean]

On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, Arandir wrote:

> On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, David Starner wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 14, 1999 at 08:56:50PM -0800, Arandir wrote:
> Take a look at the "following conditions":
> 
> "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
> all copies or substantial portions of the Software."
> 
> You have to give the give the same permissions to those you distribute it to.
> Just like the GPL, you are not allowed to make it less free!

Sort of.  It doesn't force you to distribute source.  So you can make it
less free, insofar as you can choose to distribute binaries with no source
(and no way of ever separating the MIT code back out). Which is fair
enough, but it's a license of different intent.

> 
> So where did this notion that you can take MIT code proprietary come
> from?

Because microsoft can use MIT code in microsoft word. That is what people
mean by taking the code proprietary.

> Probably from a misunderstanding. You are allowed to make
> modifications to MIT code, and you can license those modifications
> however you want. But the original software itself may not have its
> license changed. If you look through GPL'd packages' source code, you
> occasionally find individual files under a BSD or MIT license even
> though the package as a whole is under the GPL. You still have the
> right to take those files and redistribute them under the MIT clauses.
> The GPL allows this because the MIT license does not add any
> restrictions beyond the GPL restrictions.

True. Exactly.

> 
> But if you use any GPL code, then the entire package must be under the GPL.
> Thus, if you statically link a MIT application to a GPL library, you are
> required to distribute the whole under the GPL. But the MIT license does not
> allow this. (a dual MIT-GPL licensed package might be possible, however)
> 

The MIT does allow that.  The license on the work as a whole is combined
GPL/MIT. The license on the original MIT bits is MIT. End-users can copy
the whole, as long as they satsify the GPL *and* the MIT.  This happens to
be very easy, since if you satisfy the GPL, you will automatically satisfy
the MIT.  End-users can also copy just the MIT bit, and if they do that,
they're not in violation of the GPL authors copyright, so he has
absolutely no say on what they do. (I.e. they simply have to satisfy the
MIT).

> This may sound like nitpicking (it probably is), but the big
> difference is that the former is GPL code derived from MIT code, but
> anything derived from GPL code must be licensed under the GPL.

I think you've slightly misunderstood, in fact.  Does the above make it
clearer?

Jules

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