Net Integration's NITIX OS

[Hal Duston]

On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 10:54, Jonathan Hale wrote:
> "Hal Duston" <hduston at speedscript.com>
> > Hrmm, this technique sounds rather familiar. .. .. .. Thinking .. ..
> ..
> > Oh yes:
> >
> >      Dear IBM,
> >
> >      You have stolen code from us, but we can't actually
> >      prove it.  Please give us all your source code so
> >      that we can find out for certain if you have in fact
> >      stolen code from us.
> >
> >      Sincerely,
> >      SCO
> 
> My God!  Hal just compared me to SCO! *l*
> As I read it, section 2b of the GPL reads "You must cause any work that
> you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is
> derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole
> at no charge to_all_third_parties under the terms of this License."
> This does not mean their entire OS--just the parts that derive, in whole
> or in part, from Linux.

Does this mean that I have to _license_ my changes to the Linux kernel
to all third parties?  Yes.  Does this mean that I have to _distribute_
my modified sources to all third parties?  No.  I only have to
distribute modified sources to any party to whom I have distributed the
modified binaries.  I cannot prevent any of those parties from further
distributing my modified binaries and my modified source.  That is the
difference between being required to _distribute_ a modified source and
being required to _license_ a modified source.  I must distribute the
modified source only to those to whom I have distributed binaries.

License != Distribute.

--snip--
> I also realize that section 3 of the GPL gives them three options for
> compliance.  And I know that not only could I be misinterpreting the
> GPL, but also, they do not have to give the code to ME.  That is why I
> cc'd others and suggested that they contact the original author if they
> have not already done so.  (Though, I'm just supposed to take their word
> for it that they did that?)  So far as I know, SCO has not offered to
> let IBM provide their code to Dennis Ritchie or AT&T or some other
> interested third party for review.

I do _not_ have to distribute my modified Linux kernel to Linus Torvalds
or any other major kernel source copyright holder.  Only to those to
whom I have actually distributed the binaries.  As I said above, I
cannot forbid those parties from engaging in further distributions.

License != Distribute.

--
Hal