[clug] What can't be distributed with Linux?

Craig Small csmall at enc.com.au
Thu Mar 22 05:52:13 GMT 2007


On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 04:30:54PM +1100, Alex Satrapa wrote:
> Which means there are licences in the distribution that I'm using  
> that aren't strictly compatible with the GPL2, and so you need to do  
> a bachelor's degree in contract law (and possibly get a few years'  
> experience under your belt) before you can really understand what  
> impact those licences have on your rights and obligations as a  
> distribution packager.
Debian's spent countless amount of time working this out. Remember that
having two programs with different, possibly incompatible, licenses
on a single CD is very different situation to attempting to link
them together.

I only single Debian out because it is the one I'm most familiar with
and, to be frank, some other distributions don't seem to care too much
about licenses.

> To me, it seems that simply using GPL2 as a filter for what gets to  
> go into my distribution makes it so much easier to handle. One  
> licence to rule them all, and to the distribution bind them.
It solves a lot of problems, ok it may not be for everyone but it
is often the easiest route.  For that and many other reasons it is the
one I on stuff I write.

 - Craig
-- 
Craig Small      GnuPG:1C1B D893 1418 2AF4 45EE  95CB C76C E5AC 12CA DFA5
http://www.enc.com.au/                             csmall at : enc.com.au
http://www.debian.org/          Debian GNU/Linux, software should be Free 


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