Licensing

[Richard Gaskin]

Kay C Lan wrote:

> Whilst I agree with 'your' interpretation of Peter's situation, that is not
> what Richard wrote. He said:
>
> all code running in the same engine is governed by the license for that
> engine.
>
> If a plugin is made with the Commercial Edition, it can be run within the
> Community Edition under GPL or any GPL-compatible license.

Yep, that's what I wrote, though I should note again that I'm neither a 
lawyer nor Kevin - that's just what I see in major GPL-governed systems 
like Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla.

The lack of a specific definition for "derivative work" has been a very 
contentious issue in the Joomla world and elsewhere - I covered this in 
detail last year:
<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2013-December/196463.html>

I've already linked to the Wordpress page on this - here's the Drupal one:

    7: If I write a module or theme, do I have to license it under
    the GPL?

    Yes. Drupal modules and themes are a derivative work of Drupal.
    If you distribute them, you must do so under the terms of the
    GPL version 2 or later.
<https://www.drupal.org/licensing/faq/#q7>

I'm not Drupal's legal counsel, I'm just sitting on the sidelines 
enjoying the popcorn, noting only my own personal opinion and how I 
apply it to my own decisions.


> For an ideology that is suppose to remove restrictions on software it's
> surprising how confusing, restrictive and detrimental it can be.

It is indeed confusing because the ways code can co-mingle in memory are 
not only vast but ever-changing, eluding a simple definition.

But whether it's "detrimental" is a matter of taste.  The spirit of the 
GPL is very clearly about sharing, and doing so in way that ensures that 
those who choose your work and distribute things made with it also honor 
the sharing spirit you've expressed by choosing the GPL.

There is no requirement to use any particular software, and for those of 
us who choose to use LiveCode our choices are made even broader by its 
dual license - we can pick the one that best fits our intentions and 
goals for the application at hand.

Like the old saying goes, there's no disputing taste.  Folks who like 
the GPL tend to choose it, folks who prefer something else choose 
something else.  I use a wide range of licenses for my own work, 
depending on the goals for a given project.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for Desktop, Mobile, and Web
  ____________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com        http://www.FourthWorld.com