[nylug-talk] are we about to lose something?

[Joseph M. Gaffney]

On Monday 06 November 2006 13:08, phantom21 at mindspring.com wrote:
> I may be wrong on some of this, but:
>
> 1 - Is SAMBA licensed under GPL?

Yep.

> 2 - If so, by GPL, any modifications made to the code and distributed must
> be distributed in source code as well as binary format.

Not sure, I can't say I 100% understand the IP section.

> 3 - If the code is distributed in source, then anyone can then add it to
> their code, as long as they also include source.

Except only if they are "partnered" with MS are they "safe" from litigation.

> 4 - Anyone who modifies and distributes GPL code, but doesn't distribute
> the source with it loses their license to use the GPL code in question.

Same as #2, dunno.

> IANAL and if I'm wrong I want to be corrected here, but if Novell - with or
> without MS help, improves or changes SAMBA and distributes it with their
> distro, they must distribute it with the source, which anyone can then use
> under the GPL.  If they don't distribute the source, they lose their
> license to distribute SAMBA at all.
>
> Right or wrong?
>
> Mark
>

The more interesting one is GNOME - and its heavy use of Mono.  Mono is a 
blatant use of .Net, which despite being an ECMA standard, is still the 
intellectual property of MS.

-Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin