Re: GPL and other licences

[Isaac]

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 03:00:51 +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@gnu.org> wrote:
>    This should be pretty easy to resolve.  Show me the license
>    provision of the GPL that allows me to combine (and not distribute)
>    GPL code that is broken when I combine (but do not distribute) GPL
>    and non GPL code.  I don't believe you can find a provision that
>    does this.  You can only find provisions which disallow
>    distribution of funky combinations.
> 
> See the GNU GPL, section 2.  You are not required to distribute the
> changes, you are required to follow the license.
> 

Section 2 tells me that I can modify and distribute as long as I meet
all of the three provisions 2(a), (b) and (c).  Those provisions are 
extremely easy to meet no matter what I combine GPL code with unless I intend 
to distribute.

If I try to distribute, I have to distribute the combination under the GPL
as required by part 2(b).  If it is impossible to do so, then I cannot 
distribute.  But if I want to combine on my own system without distribution, 
I must comply with part (a) which just requires annotating the modified
source code modules.  If my program does not read commands interactively, 
then I need to nothing to comply with part (c).

Quite frankly, I would be surprised if any copyright holder cared the
least whether I ever got around to annotating source code modules that
I don't distribute or whether some program on my system failed to spit
out a no-warranty notice.

Isaac