Hi, A piece of software has come to my attention that may be violating the GPL. Details are as follows: - The software is an interface (GUI, intermediary routines) between a proprietary operating system and the Free printing system GIMP-Print. - The company distributing the software is not offering source code, and has not licensed the derivative work under the GPL. - The software can only be downloaded after a 'donation' is received to unlock the download page. - The software is downloaded as a complete package which includes both proprietary and GPL-licensed code. The interface itself is useless without GIMP-Print and was written specifically for it, rather than as an abstract printer interface and GUI. It is also possible to download the Free parts separately.
This sounds a LOT like a GPL violation, but I'd be interested to hear what others' first impressions are.
I'll post some links to more detailed evidence once the initial batch of responses come in...
Regards,
Phil
At Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:21:59 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
Hi, A piece of software has come to my attention that may be violating the GPL. Details are as follows:
- The software is an interface (GUI, intermediary routines) between a
proprietary operating system and the Free printing system GIMP-Print.
- The company distributing the software is not offering source code, and
has not licensed the derivative work under the GPL.
The question is whether this is really a derivative work. "An interface" doesn't really say anything, it can be a library interface or it could talk over some protocol using sockets.
- The software can only be downloaded after a 'donation' is received to
unlock the download page.
This on itself is allowed under the GPL, but you aren't allowed to add extra restrictions on the software downloaded.
- The software is downloaded as a complete package which includes both
proprietary and GPL-licensed code. The interface itself is useless without GIMP-Print and was written specifically for it, rather than as an abstract printer interface and GUI. It is also possible to download the Free parts separately.
This sounds a LOT like a GPL violation, but I'd be interested to hear what others' first impressions are.
I'll post some links to more detailed evidence once the initial batch of responses come in...
Not giving all information is really counterproductive with things like this. If you don't give the details, I can't give a good opinion about it.
Jeroen Dekkers
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:21:59 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
Hi, A piece of software has come to my attention that may be violating the GPL. Details are as follows:
- The software is an interface (GUI, intermediary routines) between a
proprietary operating system and the Free printing system GIMP-Print.
- The company distributing the software is not offering source code, and
has not licensed the derivative work under the GPL.
The question is whether this is really a derivative work. "An interface" doesn't really say anything, it can be a library interface or it could talk over some protocol using sockets.
It appears to be a library interface.
- The software can only be downloaded after a 'donation' is received to
unlock the download page.
This on itself is allowed under the GPL, but you aren't allowed to add extra restrictions on the software downloaded.
Unfortunately, no licensing information is available other than that the interface is 'not Free'. I assume that the downloaded program would include a Readme file.
- The software is downloaded as a complete package which includes both
proprietary and GPL-licensed code. The interface itself is useless without GIMP-Print and was written specifically for it, rather than as an abstract printer interface and GUI. It is also possible to download the Free parts separately.
This sounds a LOT like a GPL violation, but I'd be interested to hear what others' first impressions are.
I'll post some links to more detailed evidence once the initial batch of responses come in...
Not giving all information is really counterproductive with things like this. If you don't give the details, I can't give a good opinion about it.
Jeroen Dekkers
In that case, here are the details! GIMP-Print for RISC OS: http://www.mw-software.com/software/gimp-print/gimp-print.html
Screenshots of the interface: http://www.mw-software.com/software/gimp-print/screenshots.html
The download page: http://www.mw-software.com/software/gimp-print/downloads.html
"GPDriver requires a front-end printing layer (such as that supplied with the complete Gimp-Print for RISC OS release archive) to interface with the RISC OS printing system.
The remaining components of the Gimp-Print for RISC OS project (most notably, the printing layer) are not free software. For the time being, they are only available to supporters of the project. There may be a public release of these components at a later date."
Release announcement on the SourceForge GIMP-Print mailing list: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=4554224&forum_id=...
Announcement on a RISC OS portal site: http://www.riscosnews.com/riscos/artifact964.html "The GPDriver, of course, isn't much use to you unless you have the rest of the front end software, of which there "may be a public release... at a later date", according to MW Software. Last month, MW Software asked users to donate cash to the project, which uses the popular open source gimp-print library to enable printing on a range of modern printers."
Press release by the author: http://www.myriscos.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=arti...
Phil
At Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:07:19 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:21:59 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
Hi, A piece of software has come to my attention that may be violating the GPL. Details are as follows:
- The software is an interface (GUI, intermediary routines) between a
proprietary operating system and the Free printing system GIMP-Print.
- The company distributing the software is not offering source code, and
has not licensed the derivative work under the GPL.
The question is whether this is really a derivative work. "An interface" doesn't really say anything, it can be a library interface or it could talk over some protocol using sockets.
It appears to be a library interface.
I can't really see enough out of the descriptions. The problem is that I don't know anything about GIMP-Print or RiscOS. I think the only way to be sure whether it's a GPL violation is to download the code and look at it.
Jeroen Dekkers
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:07:19 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:21:59 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
Hi, A piece of software has come to my attention that may be violating the GPL. Details are as follows:
- The software is an interface (GUI, intermediary routines) between a
proprietary operating system and the Free printing system GIMP-Print.
- The company distributing the software is not offering source code, and
has not licensed the derivative work under the GPL.
The question is whether this is really a derivative work. "An interface" doesn't really say anything, it can be a library interface or it could talk over some protocol using sockets.
It appears to be a library interface.
I can't really see enough out of the descriptions. The problem is that I don't know anything about GIMP-Print or RiscOS. I think the only way to be sure whether it's a GPL violation is to download the code and look at it.
I was under the impression that any code which links directly to a GPL'd library is essentially using part of a GPL-licensed work in the form of the method names it is calling, and as such by directly linking, becomes in itself a 'derivative work' which must be GPL licensed in order to be legally distributed.
Is that right? That's why the LGPL was created, wasn't it? So people could use Free Software libraries, without having to take a full leap into the Free Software community?
Phil
At Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:03:07 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
I was under the impression that any code which links directly to a GPL'd library is essentially using part of a GPL-licensed work in the form of the method names it is calling, and as such by directly linking, becomes in itself a 'derivative work' which must be GPL licensed in order to be legally distributed.
That's indeed right. The problem is that I can't really make that up from the homepage. But if this is what the software does, then it is a GPL violation.
Jeroen Dekkers
Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
At Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:03:07 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
I was under the impression that any code which links directly to a GPL'd library is essentially using part of a GPL-licensed work in the form of the method names it is calling, and as such by directly linking, becomes in itself a 'derivative work' which must be GPL licensed in order to be legally distributed.
That's indeed right. The problem is that I can't really make that up from the homepage. But if this is what the software does, then it is a GPL violation.
Jeroen Dekkers
I've contacted the author, and raised the points we have both covered on this list. I can report that this is in fact NOT a GPL violation, or at least so far as I can see. Here's how the RISC OS interface works:
GemPrint (the proprietary interface) links !Printers (the RISC OS printing system) to GIMP-Print (a Free printing system which supports many more models of printer than !Printers ever could.) !Printers is proprietary, and GemPrint links to it using what are essentially RISC OS libraries.
The link between GemPrint and GIMP-Print is done via a temp file. A RISC OS application invokes !Printers by requesting that something is printed, and !Printers calls GemPrint. GemPrint saves GIMP-Print compatible data to a file, and GIMP-Print comes along later, sees the file, and prints it.
GemPrint is careful never to directly invoke the GPL-licensed library at any time.
As far as I'm concerned, this means there is no GPL violation. Unless you can see anything wrong with the system as described above.
Phil
At Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:45:03 +0000, Philip Webster wrote:
I've contacted the author, and raised the points we have both covered on this list. I can report that this is in fact NOT a GPL violation, or at least so far as I can see. Here's how the RISC OS interface works:
GemPrint (the proprietary interface) links !Printers (the RISC OS printing system) to GIMP-Print (a Free printing system which supports many more models of printer than !Printers ever could.) !Printers is proprietary, and GemPrint links to it using what are essentially RISC OS libraries.
The link between GemPrint and GIMP-Print is done via a temp file. A RISC OS application invokes !Printers by requesting that something is printed, and !Printers calls GemPrint. GemPrint saves GIMP-Print compatible data to a file, and GIMP-Print comes along later, sees the file, and prints it.
GemPrint is careful never to directly invoke the GPL-licensed library at any time.
As far as I'm concerned, this means there is no GPL violation. Unless you can see anything wrong with the system as described above.
No, I don't see any problem either. I was actually suspecting that it worked like this, but I couldn't judge from the homepage only.
Jeroen Dekkers