Compulsory checkin clauses.

Justin Wells jread at semiotek.com
Sat Aug 5 19:50:50 UTC 2000


On Sat, Aug 05, 2000 at 11:41:55AM -0700, David Johnson wrote:
> On Sat, 05 Aug 2000, Justin Wells wrote:
> 
> > Looking for thoughts on this:
> > 
> > How about releasing a modification to a GPL'd program which contains no 
> > material from the original? Recipients of the modification can "privately"
> > apply it to their GPL'd works, while the authors of the modification can 
> > claim that it is not covered by the GPL because it is not a derived work.
> 
> As I understand it, these are still considered derived works. foo.c
> is essentially a patch. There may be exceptions in a few cases, but I
> won't tread there...

That's how the FSF considers it, you're right. But my understanding is that
this is just an opinion. There's certainly room to differ about it, and 
I'd rather just write something into the license that makes the whole 
problem go away.

Justin




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