Hi Matt,
2010/1/3 Matt Madia <mattmadia@xxxxxxxxx>:
That's fine, but understand that under the GPL when you pass it to
other people they have the right to modify, and distribute the source
code. So this includes the right to publish it. So any agreement to
keep it 'under wraps' is a gentlemen's agreement, not one enforceable
through a license or copyright. Just for your information.
Not only that, once the theme is distributed to anyone outside of the
organization, then it must be freely available to anyone. To me,
'organization' in this sense infers 'websites under Haiku Inc. --
*.haiku-os.org, *.haiku-files.org'. 3rd party websites, Haikuware,
OSDrawer, Haiku-os.it, and so-on would be outside of the organization,
since they are not affiliated with Haiku Inc.
That's a misunderstanding of the GPL that we have come across on this
list before.
Shortly put: when you distribute a binary (or the source) to someone,
that person has the right to modify and distribute it. If Jorge passes
on the source to me, I can modify and/or distribute that.
The error is in thinking that if Jorge sends it to me, he must make it
available for everyone. That is not true. Only the people that get it
have the right to access the source and distribute it.
Of course, anyone with access to the source can distribute it. So
that's why you can only rely on a gentlemen's agreement if you want to
share some GPL code but want to keep it under wraps.
So, I would be in favor of not distributing the current Shijin 3 theme
at all and instead, providing the generic theme (which would be seen
as a second body of work) that Jorge initially proposed.
Naturally the images that contain the Haiku logo are not under MIT or
GPL license, and as such cannot be distributed. Everything else in
terms of the license complies, so that can be re-used.
So Jorge: there is no problem with distributing Shijin sans Haiku
logo. But I would suggest asking those that get the theme to at least
make their work stand out from our website in order to protect the
Haiku brand.
