[wp-hackers] Plugin Site -- Message from FSF

Carthik Sharma carthik at gmail.com
Sun Jul 18 22:45:11 UTC 2004


Hi,

I had written to the source (FSF) to find out the details, and after
three weeks and some, I got a reply too. I have copied the email I
sent out , and the reply from Dave Turner (licensing at fsf.org) below,
so everyone can read it :

----FIRST EMAIL COPIED----
>[casharma at mail.ucf.edu - Wed Jun 30 17:55:32 2004]:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> After a long and exhaustive search of the web, I still cannot find the 
>> answer to the following question, and so I decided to use the contact 
>> email address  :
>> 
>> If a software "product" which consists of 'n' different source files is 
>> distributed as bundle with a copy of the GNU General Public License 
>> document (license.txt), but none of the 'n' (or maybe 'm' out of the 
>> 'n') source files in the product contain any kind of copyright statement 
>> , or reference to the GPL, are the files under GPL? Is the product 
>> considered to be released under GPL?
>> 
>> In other words is it absolutely essential to follow the 
>> (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html) howto to the word, and 
>> if,  in case a software product like the one I described above 
>> contains  source code files that do not adhere to the following 
>> requirement -
>> 
>> "Whichever license you plan to use, the process involves adding two 
>> elements to each source file of your program: a copyright notice (such 
>> as "Copyright 1999 Linda Jones"), and a statement of copying permission, 
>> saying that the program is distributed under the terms of the GNU 
>> General Public License (or the Lesser GPL)."
>> 
>> - is the product still a GPL product, if not what licence/copyright 
>> scheme describes the product or the source files?


It is generally a bad idea to rely on unclear statements of licensing. 
I recommend that you write to the distributor and ask for clarification.
 You should suggest that they follow the instructions at the end of the GPL.

If one or two files were missing notices, I would be less worried than
if all files were missing notices.  But any missing notices are cause
for concern.

-- -Dave "Novalis" Turner GPL Compliance Engineer Free Software Foundation 

----END OF FIRST EMAIL COPIED----

Before I got that reply, I had got this one below, from info at fsf.org,
in response to my query:

----SECOND EMAIL COPIED----
On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 05:55:32PM -0400, casharma at mail.ucf.edu via RT wrote:

>> If a software "product" which consists of 'n' different source files is 
>> distributed as bundle with a copy of the GNU General Public License 
>> document (license.txt), but none of the 'n' (or maybe 'm' out of the 
>> 'n') source files in the product contain any kind of copyright statement 
>> , or reference to the GPL, are the files under GPL? Is the product 
>> considered to be released under GPL?


I am very sorry for the late response to this message.  Since we are a
non-profit with very limited resources, messages to this address often get
backlogged, and we are always struggling to catch up.

I have forwarded your message to our licensing department
<licensing at gnu.org> who handle such queries.  Feel free to contact them
directly in the future with such questions.  Let me know if you don't get
a satisfactory reply from them.

Best regards,

-- Brett Smith, Free Software Foundation Become a card-carrying member
of FSF: http://member.fsf.org/ Help support our work for FSF and the
GNU project: http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=fsfinfo
----END OF SECOND EMAIL COPIED----

I just thought that this might be useful, basically FSF says I should
suggest that WordPress follows the guidelines and that the missing
notices are a cause for concern (though the  nature of the "concern"
is not specified clearly.

I agree that it is sufficiently clear, in a common-sensical manner
that All of WordPress is GPL'ed, I just wanted to remove ambiguities,
and make sure that we are not, unknowingly violating a requirement.

 Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:28:07 -0500, Matt Mullenweg <m at mullenweg.com> wrote:
> I don't see a problem with the current way we assert GPL status in the
> program. I know of at least one person at the FSF who uses WordPress and
> Eric Raymond uses b2 so I imagine they would have told us if there was a
> real problem.
They could well be unaware of the missing notices, not having noticed
it's absence. Maybe you could ask them as well, about the requirement.

> I really don't feel like junking up the top of every file
> with overly verbose GPL/copyright statements when that information is more
> than clear from the site, the included license, the CVS logs...
> 
There is no question in my mind as to whether WP is released under the
GPL :) I was thinking along the lines of protecting WP's interests,
and ensuring that it stays GPL'ed and accessible to all.

I hope the email I copied over help, and please let me know if I can
do something vis-a-vis following up with FSF, with more questions
etc...

Regards,
Carthik.


-- 
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone -- 老子 Lǎozi

University of Central Florida
Homepage: http://carthik.net



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