From greg.soper at salesagility.com Thu Jan 8 16:13:49 2009 From: greg.soper at salesagility.com (Greg Soper) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:13:49 +0000 Subject: Inheriting or disinheriting GPL license conditions Message-ID: <4966182D.9050301@salesagility.com> Hi I do extensive work with SugarCRM - only on the Open Source version of it. SugarCRM, from Release 5.0 is GPL 3. Previous releases were the Sugar Public License (SPL) which was essentially GPL2 with attribution clauses and was not recognised by OSI. There is a vendor of a SugarCRM fork, based on a GPL2/SPL licensed version of SugarCRM who has heavily modified the application. This vendor takes advantage of services distribution omissions in GPL2 which allows IP in modified versions to be retained if the software is distributed as a service. However, the vendor also distributes an "on-premise" or physical version of the modified application. This on-premise version is covered by a proprietary license that forbids distribution of any vendor written code, but allows distribution of the original SugarCRM written code. If I remember correctly from a seminar I attended a couple or ten years ago .... if you modify and distribute GPL2 code, the whole code base is covered by GPL2 ... the changes inherit the GPL2 license conditions. Can anyone educate me here? thanks in anticipation. -- Greg Soper Managing Director SalesAgility.com Ltd. SugarCRM Experts *email:* greg.soper at salesagility.com *skype:* greg.soper *web:* http://www.salesagility.com *tel: *01324 889108 *mob:* 07740 982083 This email, including any attachments, is confidential. If you are not the intended addressee, please notify the sender immediately by email and delete this email completely from your system, you must not disseminate, copy, distribute or disclose the contents of this email. Emails could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, delayed or contain malicious components. Therefore the sender does not accept any liability or responsibility for any loss or damage incurred whatsoever. Personal opinions and views expressed in this email may not necessarily reflect the official opinions and views of the Company. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/attachments/20090108/2ef20e0a/attachment.htm From joseph at heenan.me.uk Thu Jan 8 21:18:49 2009 From: joseph at heenan.me.uk (Joseph Heenan) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:18:49 +0000 Subject: Inheriting or disinheriting GPL license conditions In-Reply-To: <4966182D.9050301@salesagility.com> References: <4966182D.9050301@salesagility.com> Message-ID: <49665FA9.7040208@heenan.me.uk> Hi Greg, I've not researched sugarCRM at all; I've a few questions you quite probably know the answers to: Greg Soper wrote: [snip] > However, the vendor also distributes an "on-premise" or physical version > of the modified application. This on-premise version is covered by a > proprietary license that forbids distribution of any vendor written > code, but allows distribution of the original SugarCRM written code. There's presumably no argument that this is distribution. I'd imagine any points that are debatable will be how much of the vendor's written code is a "derived work" of the GPL code. It's not too clear from your email; do you believe that the vendor has modified some of the files provided by SugarCRM? Are they allowing their customers to distribute *those* modified files under the GPL, or only the original versions without the vendors changes? Are some of the vendor's modification viewed as "plugins"? Is there a defined plugin interface? It is clear if you can license sugarCRM under any license you want? Do any of their 'plugins' incorporate GPL licensed code? Do you (or your company) own the copyright to some of the GPL code in sugarCRM? (Your sig suggests you may be a contributor.) Did the vendor contribute any of the code in the open source GPL version of sugarCRM? Joseph From matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu Fri Jan 9 00:55:52 2009 From: matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu (Matthew Flaschen) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:55:52 -0500 Subject: Inheriting or disinheriting GPL license conditions In-Reply-To: <4966182D.9050301@salesagility.com> References: <4966182D.9050301@salesagility.com> Message-ID: <49669288.6060101@gatech.edu> Greg Soper wrote: > Hi > > I do extensive work with SugarCRM - only on the Open Source version > of it. > > SugarCRM, from Release 5.0 is GPL 3. Previous releases were the Sugar > Public License (SPL) which was essentially GPL2 with attribution > clauses and was not recognised by OSI. At least the latest SPL was definitely MPL + attribution (http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/SPL). There's a huge difference between GPL2 and MPL, disregarding for a moment the "attribution" issues. > If I remember correctly from a seminar I attended a couple or ten > years ago .... if you modify and distribute GPL2 code, the whole code > base is covered by GPL2 ... the changes inherit the GPL2 license > conditions. That's correct, but again SPL was based on MPL. MPL is a "weaker" copyleft. It says "Any new file /that contains any part of the Original Code/ or previous Modifications." [must be put under MPL]. So a totally new file does /not/ have to be put under MPL. You should also note that MPL is not compatible with GPL2 or GPL3. Matt Flaschen From danielpalme82 at googlemail.com Fri Jan 16 10:36:28 2009 From: danielpalme82 at googlemail.com (Daniel Palme) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:36:28 +0100 Subject: GPL license in PHP Message-ID: <3ed4c5550901160136g5ec14e42heb3cd244e16d6381@mail.gmail.com> Hi I'm developing a web framework using PHP which should be available under the Apache License 2.0. Now I have two questions: I am using 'HTML2FPDF' (http://sourceforge.net/projects/html2fpdf) to generate PDF documents. HTML2FPDF is licensed under LGPL. I do not subclass any classes from 'HTML2FPDF', but I use some classes out of this library to generate a PDF. Does this work together with the Apache License 2.0? Or do I have to provide the framework under the LGPL? --- To execute UnitTests and to generate a code coverage reports I'm using SimpleTest and SpikePHPCoverage, which are licensed under the LGPL 2.1. I do subclass some classes from these frameworks and want to provide these classes as well (for developers). Does this work together with the Apache License 2.0? Or do I have to provide the tests classes under the LGPL? Thank you very much, Daniel P. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.gpl-violations.org/pipermail/legal/attachments/20090116/3bfd8d51/attachment.htm From david at davidkra.net Sun Jan 18 20:03:13 2009 From: david at davidkra.net (David Kraeutmann) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:03:13 +0100 Subject: Gira Homeserver GPL Violation In-Reply-To: <2cb9058c0812201216s43a5d001s9f341716b6024dd8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb9058c0812181904q4cf3717ata396c2001f33b927@mail.gmail.com> <2cb9058c0812182213x6984c826qe621e73f3bb20985@mail.gmail.com> <1229668485.25835.89.camel@localhost> <2cb9058c0812201216s43a5d001s9f341716b6024dd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2cb9058c0901181103s419c309cx78b371cfbb5a9eca@mail.gmail.com> Uhh, anything new? On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 9:16 PM, David Kraeutmann wrote: > Yes, I contacted them two times, the first time they answered that > they will include a GPL notice with every Homeserver and firmware > package. After that I wrote them that they also need to release the > source code of the GPL'd projects; they didn't answer on that message. > > Thanks, > David > > On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 7:34 AM, Craig Whitmore wrote: >> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 07:13 +0100, David Kraeutmann wrote: >>> http://www.gira.de/download/index.html?id=1043 >> >>> Hello, >>> I found out that the Gira Homeserver firmware violates the GPL: it >>> uses at least the Linux Kernel and Busybox and provides a GPL notice, >>> but no source code is available. >> >>> Gira's website: http://www.gira.de >>> Homeserver Firmware download: > >>> http://www.gira.de/download/index.html?id=1043 >> >> And what do they say about it? have you contacted them? >> >> Thanks >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > From medicalwei at gmail.com Mon Jan 19 17:51:00 2009 From: medicalwei at gmail.com (=?Big5?B?w1HDxC9NZWRpY2FsLVdlaQ==?=) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:51:00 +0800 Subject: E-Lead EL-460 might violates GPL Message-ID: Hello, I'd like to ask for the process of issuing a GPL violation, because I found a product which might violated GPL or LGPL. I found that E-Lead [1] EL-460 [2] (a net-top) preinstalled GNU/Linux (which is based on Ubuntu) has some modified packages which is to cooperate with its proprietary program called Noahpad. Noahpad is used to display the status of the special touchpad-keyboard. E-Lead modified SCIM [3], which it is LGPL licensed, in order to show different soft-keyboards for different input methods on the screen, but I cannot get the source code neither of SCIM nor of Noahpad. It is possible that the program also violates GPL because of the inheritance of Linux kernel and some part of GPL-ed programs. Months ago, I've mailed them for the source code of SCIM and Noahpad, but they have no reply at all; maybe they didn't receive the mail at all. Should I contact them in other methods? or what's the next step I have to take? [1] http://www.e-lead.com.tw/Engweb/index.asp [2] http://www.noahpad.com/ [3] http://www.scim-im.org/ Thanks, Ming-Ting Wei/Medical-Wei From twaffle at gmail.com Mon Jan 19 19:12:49 2009 From: twaffle at gmail.com (Thomas Charron) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:12:49 -0500 Subject: E-Lead EL-460 might violates GPL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <30dfe2a80901191012rc55c094y1808f71ceca232cb@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 11:51 AM, ??/Medical-Wei wrote: > Hello, > I'd like to ask for the process of issuing a GPL violation, > because I found a product which might violated GPL or LGPL. > I found that E-Lead [1] EL-460 [2] (a net-top) preinstalled > GNU/Linux (which is based on Ubuntu) has some modified packages which > is to cooperate with its proprietary program called Noahpad. Noahpad > is used to display the status of the special touchpad-keyboard. E-Lead > modified SCIM [3], which it is LGPL licensed, in order to show > different soft-keyboards for different input methods on the screen, > but I cannot get the source code neither of SCIM nor of Noahpad. > It is possible that the program also violates GPL because of the > inheritance of Linux kernel and some part of GPL-ed programs. > Months ago, I've mailed them for the source code of SCIM and > Noahpad, but they have no reply at all; maybe they didn't receive the > mail at all. > Should I contact them in other methods? or what's the next step I > have to take? > > [1] http://www.e-lead.com.tw/Engweb/index.asp > [2] http://www.noahpad.com/ > [3] http://www.scim-im.org/ This sort of request comes up often on this list. IMHO, the best course of action is to contact the authors of the application as well as the offenders together. We, as users of GPL software, I do not believe have a legal right to demand the source, merely to request it. If they do not provide the source, they are then in violation, and have no valid license. However, they are now in violation of the authors rights, and not ours. I believe this is one of the reasons why it is helpfull to actually assign rights to the FSF. By assigning rights to the FSF, the author gives the FSF the legal right to pursue violations. Comments? -- -- Thomas From mrintegrity at gmail.com Wed Jan 21 15:03:36 2009 From: mrintegrity at gmail.com (mr) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:03:36 +0100 Subject: Gira Homeserver GPL Violation In-Reply-To: <2cb9058c0901181103s419c309cx78b371cfbb5a9eca@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb9058c0812181904q4cf3717ata396c2001f33b927@mail.gmail.com> <2cb9058c0812182213x6984c826qe621e73f3bb20985@mail.gmail.com> <1229668485.25835.89.camel@localhost> <2cb9058c0812201216s43a5d001s9f341716b6024dd8@mail.gmail.com> <2cb9058c0901181103s419c309cx78b371cfbb5a9eca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5dfaf390901210603i1552e7bfwdd8fb824a76d15b3@mail.gmail.com> You tell us? This is a volunteer based community, you should follow up with the company your self. Contact busybox and see what they have to say. Cheers, Alan 2009/1/18 David Kraeutmann : > Uhh, anything new? > > On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 9:16 PM, David Kraeutmann wrote: >> Yes, I contacted them two times, the first time they answered that >> they will include a GPL notice with every Homeserver and firmware >> package. After that I wrote them that they also need to release the >> source code of the GPL'd projects; they didn't answer on that message. >> >> Thanks, >> David >> >> On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 7:34 AM, Craig Whitmore wrote: >>> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 07:13 +0100, David Kraeutmann wrote: >>>> http://www.gira.de/download/index.html?id=1043 >>> >>>> Hello, >>>> I found out that the Gira Homeserver firmware violates the GPL: it >>>> uses at least the Linux Kernel and Busybox and provides a GPL notice, >>>> but no source code is available. >>> >>>> Gira's website: http://www.gira.de >>>> Homeserver Firmware download: > >>>> http://www.gira.de/download/index.html?id=1043 >>> >>> And what do they say about it? have you contacted them? >>> >>> Thanks >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > >