On Thursday 14 June 2007 16:08, Alan Milnes wrote:
quoted text
> Agreed - if you want to take my work you are welcome as long as you
> contribute back your changes.  That's the deal that GPL2 enforces and
> why it has been so successful.

That may be a side effect of the GPL, but it's actually not how the GPLv2=20
works (nor is it the intention). "Contribute back" means upstream. There's=
=20
no such provision in the GPLv2, you contribute only downstream. And there=20
are cases where you don't need to contribute at all.

E.g. the kernel hacking I'm doing at the moment: I have bought a uClinux=20
blackfin board, for testing my digital audio amplifier. For that, I took=20
one of the blackfin alsa audio drivers, and changed it so that it could=20
talk to my digital audio amplifier. I'm not distributing this software,=20
it's a complete in-house project, so I'm not obliged to contribute back. At=
=20
the moment, I'm the only person in the world who has both access to the=20
digital audio amplifier and the blackfin board, so releasing this driver in=
=20
that early stage is a rather pointless excercise.

I think this above explains fairly well the "misunderstandings" that are=20
appearing here. The GPL is not reflective (tit-for-tat), it's transient. If=
=20
there's a loop in the transient propagation, it becomes reflective through=
=20
the loop, but not by itself. This was the case in GPLv1, is the case in=20
GPLv2, and will be the case in GPLv3.

=2D-=20
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/