[Asterisk-Users] SysMaster and GPL Violation

[Tom Lahti]

[snip]

>If someone believes that they are contributing software to a GPL'd
>software project, and does not realize that the nature of your disclaimer
>allows Digium to release their changes under a non-GPL'd license, then
>that is breaking with the spirit of the GPL.

If that is true, then the GPL is not comprehensive enough to cover its own 
"spirit", so what you are saying is that the GPL implementation is 
fundamentally flawed.

If one can break the "spirit" of it without breaking it, then something is 
missing from it that should have there.

On the other hand, if you are injecting some supernatural "spirit" (and 
purposely using that word to conjure imagery of the imaginary intangible 
qualities that can never be written on paper) of your own into what the GPL 
actually is, then the GPL is fine as written, which I suspect is the 
case.  The GPL is what it
says, and its spirit comes from what it says, and there is no way that 
anyone can break its spirit as such.

Unless you are now claiming to be the author of the GPL, you should stop 
trying to be an expert on its "spirit".  The only ones qualified to do so 
are John Stallman and his attorneys, misguided though they may be.

>Yet no matter how much I don't care for the GPL, I find myself believing
>contributors who don't fully understand the disclaimer merely to be naive,
>but Digium looking a bit unscrupulous in this regard.

Butter him up and then call him unscrupulous in a later 
paragraph.  Beautifully manipulative.

>That obviously won't fix the "moral standing" problem that the FSF would

Your own use of quotes here suggests something interesting.  I'll leave it 
to the reader to discover what.


--
Tom