Open source, closed source, and the value of code

[Mark Waddingham]

Usual IANAL terms apply :)

On 2016-03-01 06:21, Monte Goulding wrote:
> My reading of this is that any content embedded in a stackFile should
> be licensed under the GPL. I could be wrong as I’m also not a lawyer!
> I would have thought that the spirit of the license that it applies to
> everything the application requires to function.

Whilst the GPL can be used to cover content there are more (GPL 
compatible) suitable ones. The main problem with applying the GPL to 
content is deciding what constitutes the 'source code'. Indeed, I 
believe there is an FAQ on the FSF site about such things but I can't 
find it at the moment (slow internet connection on a train!). Generally 
the Creative Commons style licenses are far better for content - you 
just need to pick a variant which is definitely compatible with the GPL 
(CC/0, for example).

> To be honest I’m unclear if there are grey areas about loading content
> at runtime from external files. It may be only OK to license
> differently under certain conditions like publicly documented file
> format reader/editors???? I don’t know about that but it would have
> seemed to be an easy workaround for Wordpress themes if it were
> possible to license the php part GPL and the images and CSS etc under
> some proprietary license. Like I said though, I’m not a lawyer!

There are no gray areas here. The GPL is self policing in terms of what 
it requires of the distributor of a GPL licensed work. When you convey a 
work under the GPL you have to ensure you can supply everything to the 
receiver to enable them to reproduce the work with or without 
modifications. If you attempt to ship (say) an app where the code is 
under GPL but the content files are under a proprietary license you (as 
distributor) are violating the GPL yourself as the receiver is then not 
able to reproduce the work with any modifications they might wish to 
make.

A similar situation (as far as I understand it) covers someone giving 
you C source-code (say) for a compiled GPL app they are distributing, 
but not providing the build files that they used to build it (the 
receiver has to be able to recreate what they received); or using some 
sort of code obfuscation process on any of the source files which they 
distributed (the receiver has to be able to modify the code effectively 
if they wish).

Warmest Regards,

Mark.

-- 
Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps