Fedora and the System Administrator

[Buck]

As I have been reading it and seeing it interpreted, someone can create
a software package containing both proprietary and open source code.
There are restrictions on how to keep the proprietary from becoming open
source but if a product contains proprietary information, the source
code to that information does not have to be distributed but the open
source source code must be distributed EXACTLY as it was used in the
compiled binary. On is not permitted to create a program and deliver
modified source code for it.  Therefore a binary distribution could be
restricted without question.  

If 100% of the code and project were open source, the person who
compiles it can distribute that compile, ever if it were exactly the
same and therefore negate the "no distribution" clause.  Proprietary
components such as trademarks and graphics appear to be enough to allow
for a no-distribution and force a would-be cloner to make code changes
to redistribute the package under a different name.

If I remember what I read correctly, Red Hat allows the trademarks and
graphics from Fedora to be distributed with the binary IF there is no
alteration from the original.  If the code is changed or re-compiled,
then the copy has to be stripped of all of the trademarks and whatever
graphics are proprietary.

Buck

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-list-admin at redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin at redhat.com]
On Behalf Of Stephen Smoogen
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 12:15 PM
To: fedora-list at redhat.com
Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator


On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 19:45, Bill Anderson wrote:

> 
> <the whirring sound of a can opener is heard>
> If the binary is GPL, really I don't see how you stop that from being 
> redistributed either. That is an additional encumbrance not compatible

> with the GPL.
> 

Join the group of people who have asked the FSF opinion on this, doing
anything else is just wasting electrons..

The only legal reading I have heard of it (not from RH) was that the GPL
only really covers that a binary given will be given source code. It
doesnt say that a person cant put addition restrictions on the binary..
only that it cant put restrictions on the distribution of the source
code. 

-- 
Stephen John Smoogen		smoogen at lanl.gov
Los Alamos National Lab  CCN-5 Sched 5/40  PH: 4-0645
Ta-03 SM-1498 MailStop B255 DP 10S  Los Alamos, NM 87545
-- So shines a good deed in a weary world. = Willy Wonka --


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