[haiku-development] Re: INPUT / VOTE : --include-gpl-addons

  • From: Urias McCullough <umccullough@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:22:54 -0700

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Bruno Albuquerque<bga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Urias McCullough wrote:
>
>> Just to add to my existing understanding and provide a pro-GPL
>> viewpoint into this discussion, those who wrote the AC3 decoder might
>> suggest that Haiku's media kit would not be as good, or have as many
>> features if it was distributed without their code, thus, by
>> distributing the media kit with their code, they might insist that the
>> media kit is a "derivative" of their code. I realize that loadable
>> modules make this entire discussion *very* fuzzy, but the argument can
>> go either way. It will ultimately come down to interpretation and what
>> the original copyright authors feel is right.

Just to be clear, this is just some peoples' interpretation, I don't
necessarily agree with it, but wanted to throw it out for discussion.

> Except that they could do absolutely nothing if Haiku was closed source and
> someone created the add-on by using only the headers available (i.e. no one
> would be able to ask that Haiku or anything else other than the add-on
> itself would be licensed under the GPL). If you think about it, the fact
> that we make the package available with the base distribution is a
> technicality. We could as well put the package somewhere for download and
> make it be automatically downloaded after installation and this, also, would
> not result in needing to license Haiku under the GPL.

Right, but that would not be distributed *with* haiku, and thus would
not make it a derivative work. The terms all apply at binary
distribution time. BTW, by providing GPL binary packages in Haiku at
distribution time, I believe we *are* bound by the GPL for those
packages, and potentially anything that links to them allegedly
(including possibly loading them dynamically as "plugins"...yeah I
know, stupid). So adding AC3 as an optional package that is
automatically included would very likely put us in the same place
depending on interpretation.

By suggesting the optional package, I just wanted to make sure that if
we disable GPL addons in the "official" alpha that we (as users) can
still download and install that package manually if desired.

> Anyway, consulting with someone that *IS* a lawyer is a good idea, but what
> I mention above is reason enough for me to think that either we are safe. If
> we are not, then I will start to agree with GPL critics and say that the
> license is crazy. :)

Even if we weren't safe, I suspect the consequences are so extremely
minimal in our case that it wouldn't even matter. In order to "comply"
after the fact, we would simply have to provide the code used to build
that release of Haiku, and then optionally remove the GPL bits from
our next release.

But yes, some legal counsel would be nice of course :)

- Urias

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