On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 09:44 +0100, Antonello Lobianco wrote:
Thanks for the reply.. I am not in the law domain but if I undestood correcty you claim that a licence of the software like the GPL+clause of mandatory redistribution of source code in case of redistribution of products/services ("results") obtained with a modified version of the software woult it make the software not only GPLv3 incompatible but also would make it not being "free software" ?
Yeah. The AGPL is a special case, because it enforces distribution in a scenario where users would never ordinarily have access to a copy of the software. In the desktop software case, users would always have access to a copy.
To tie the use of the software into forced redistribution would be an invasion of privacy to my mind, e.g.:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIDemandACopy
Which of the basic "freedoms" would it be broked ?
The right to use the software, for any purpose. We've never accepted restrictions on that (before AGPL).
I spent only few days in this matters, but I understood that a licence is compatible when the additional code add a restriction (eg. LGPL->GPL) and is uncompatible in the opposite case.. or am I going to simple ??
That's too simple.
The GPL says explicitly that you may not add further restrictions; that's how the copyleft works.
Licenses are only compatible if you can obey both of them simultaneously. In the case of GPL and GPL+restriction, you wouldn't be able to obey the original GPL, so they would be incompatible.
Cheers,
Alex.