combining software under different licenses

[David Woolley]

John Cowan wrote:

> to anyone to reuse (within broad limits) for any purpose.  The FSF,
> however, is composed of generous sharers, who give their software for
> anyone to reuse however they like, provided (except within narrow limits)
> that improvements made by others are shared with them, and do not care

The GPL does not require improvements to be shared with the original 
author.  It definitely doesn't require this in the strong sense that the 
original author gets the same rights as the improver, and it doesn't 
require it in the weaker sense, that the original author gets a copy 
when other people receive one.

All it requires is that anyone who receives a binary compiled from that 
improved version, has the right to receive a copy of the corresponding 
source.  (It also requires them to be able to obtain copies of the 
sources for binaries produced from unmodified sources.)  Those sources 
must not have any more licensing restrictions than the included in the 
GPL, and must not have any less rights.



-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.