[Asterisk-Users] GPL thoughts

[Adam Hart]

Ronald Wiplinger wrote:

> On Tuesday 26 October 2004 12:33, Adam Hart wrote:
> 
>>Remember the requirements of GPL is regarding distribution, not use, you
>>can do what ever you like with it internally, with no requirement to
>>publish it. Config files being GPL doesn't really make sense as you
>>would only ever be distributing them as they are anyway (not compiling
>>them)
>>
>>GPL in a simple sense (feeling free to correct me on this) is "if you
>>give some the binary of software containing source under GPL, you must
>>also give them the source"
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Adam!
> 
> Now lets think one step further.
> 
> If we add a patch for the program to read some of the configuration files, 
> which are encrypted. This patch would be brought back to the open source 
> community and if they accept it, it could be implemented. If they don't you 
> still can get the patch from other places.
> 
> The patch opens with a key the encrypted file and checks against the 
> registration server if the script is licensed to the customer. If yes, 
> everthing is ok,  if not than the system can still use the script for demo 
> purposes for one hour.
> 
> What is with that thought?
> 
> Note that I changed the word from configuration file to "script", which could 
> be an external program, called by the configuration file.
> 

May I suggest the key remains on the registration server and the 
registration server returns the key if they are licensed, otherwise 
people could easily cut out the reg server. Although, they couldn't have 
  the script for demo purposes. A closed source daemon (like macrovision 
license manager) is your next safest bet. I'd suggest completely 
revisiting the solution. Service contract, leasing, etc

regarding config and gpl, I would think your app would be generating 
config's from scratch anyway? Besides that, are you asking that if only 
having the encrypted copy of the config on their computer against GPL? 
I'd say no, but i'm no laywer (GPL is designed for source code)