[Savannah-hackers] Re: mldonkey licensing

[Free Software Foundation]

On Fri, 2002-08-23 at 18:26, MLdonkey wrote:
> 
> Sorry of disturbing you again,
> 
> >  An undefined (by which I assume you mean unstated) license is always
> >  proprietary;  the default is "all rights reserved".
> 
> The files are currently distributed in obfuscated form (2 obfuscated
> files inside a 300 non-obfuscated files package). Is it possible to
> put a restriction in the licence for the software to be GPL (ie
> completely redistributable), with the only exception that these 2
> files are distributed not in "the most readable form for modification"
> (but still under other GPL terms), and only these two files. Would
> such a software be considered as free-software ?

If you are the sole copyright holder, it would be allowed.  I don't
think those two files would really be Free Software, because users would
not really have the right to modify them.  But that's not a official FSF
position (I don't really want to start a week-long process to figure out
the official position)  IMO, Savannah should not distribute these files.

But as a practical matter, obfuscation won't stop script kiddies from
screwing things up.  It will only stop good people from improving it.  
IIRC, Gnutella had people setting huge TTLs and returning bogus results
before the source was released.  



-- 
-Dave Turner
Free Software Licensing Guru
This is not legal advice.  If you need legal advice, see a lawyer.