Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 30, 2004 09:03 AM
You're still misunderstanding this issue. All of the code -- Mambo, Furthermore, the additions that Emir made -- are all GPL.
Not so. You have a mistaken belief that modifications automatically become GPLed due to some mysterious force. The GPL is a license, which means that it grants extra rights to people if they follow its stipulations. It is not a signed contract, so it cannot force any code to become GPLed.
So, when the GPL says that any redistribution of a derivative work must be done under the GPL, this doesn't mean that the derivative code is forced to become GPLed by the GPL, this means that the GPL witholds its grant of redistribution privileges to those that try to distribute a derivative work that is not wholly GPLed -- making such a distribution a violation of copyright.
That is the GPL's only power -- to withold its extra rights from those that don't follow its stipulations. It has no power to transform anyone else's code into GPLed code. Only the copyright holder has the power to do that.
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A license has no power to coerce actions
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 30, 2004 09:03 AMNot so. You have a mistaken belief that modifications automatically become GPLed due to some mysterious force. The GPL is a license, which means that it grants extra rights to people if they follow its stipulations. It is not a signed contract, so it cannot force any code to become GPLed.
So, when the GPL says that any redistribution of a derivative work must be done under the GPL, this doesn't mean that the derivative code is forced to become GPLed by the GPL, this means that the GPL witholds its grant of redistribution privileges to those that try to distribute a derivative work that is not wholly GPLed -- making such a distribution a violation of copyright.
That is the GPL's only power -- to withold its extra rights from those that don't follow its stipulations. It has no power to transform anyone else's code into GPLed code. Only the copyright holder has the power to do that.
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