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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!news.tacom.army.mil!news2.acs.oakland.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!super.zippo.com!zdc!szdc!szdc-e!news From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@freebsd.org> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux vs whatever Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 18:38:00 -0500 Organization: John S. Dyson's home machine Lines: 31 Message-ID: <32EFDF58.41C67EA6@freebsd.org> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <32EE0B70.1657@ml.com> <5claa2$jq1@cynic.portal.ca> <32f342b7.11963784@uns.bris.ac.uk> <5cnqsl$78o@cynic.portal.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT i386) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:155121 comp.os.linux.networking:66636 comp.os.linux.setup:94581 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5800 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2128 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:51364 comp.os.os2.advocacy:264394 Curt Sampson wrote: > > In article <32f342b7.11963784@uns.bris.ac.uk>, > Alex Butcher <Alex.Butcher.DELETE.THIS@bris.ac.uk> wrote: > > >Er... WinZip /DOES/ do gzip format files. I can even browse .tgz files > >here. > > It does now, but it doesn't do it with the original, GPL'd code, > does it? All this means is that either the original author spent > time rewriting code that was already written, rather than spending > that time on other features, or someone else out there re-wrote > the GPL'd code, rather than contributing new free software to the > world. (In fact, the latter is the case with NetBSD; we're right > now wasting time writing a front end for the free zlib so that we > can have a free gzip instead of an encumbered one. This is time > that would otherwise be spent writing other free software.) > This brings up another issue about applying GPL to ones own code that has been subsequently redistributed. Lots of mods will be made to the code (and the owners of the mods will perpetuate the GPL restrictions, of course.) When one wants to apply their code with the GPLed mods to a *proprietary* project -- the original owner will have to reinvent the GPLed mods... But how does one do that? If the original owner has seen the mods, the possibility taint (seeing the GPLed mods) rears it's ugly head. John