The following poll is referred to a case discussed here on the board.

For GPL project it is not good idea to use any parts that are at least open source and free for modification. (for example Perl, distributed with every Linux distro is not GPL, but "Perl artistic" license, that is open source and free license like GPL.)
In the case in mentioned thread - images used in the software are part of the source and if the software is open source, images should be "open source" (i.e. to allow editing and modification) too.

Regards.

If you contribute to a project like MenuetOS, you should let people do with that contribution what they want, as long as they do not try and stop other people from doing with that contribution, what they want.
If you do not want that,then have your own project, which is not open souce.

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ASHLEY4.

The problem is that Menuet claims to be GPL'd. Including non-GPL'd software and files is in violation of that claim. If they're going to include non-GPL'd software, then they should make that clear on their web site. (And I do consider the images, icons, etc to be part of the OS)

I whould never use a software that's licence is changing from time to time.

example:
i whouldn't care about any licences and i use the software as is, then i modify it, to be better,
after a while, the licence whould forbade that, and unfortunately a bsa whould knock-knock on your door , ohh.. what gives, you have a cracked software on your computer, so you're going to pay $8464996946463 or your new home will be the jail, but if they found you doing this direct, you might find yourself a head shorter

ps.:
some of the softwares do deserve payement to the author, but then it must do everything what it should do, so this way it is not even needed to modify the source coe of the software.

MATRIX

@crc: go talk to SuSE, RH, Cobind, Mozilla, all of them forbid you to use their images / logos in your own modified re-releases of their software. all of them are GPL with exception to Mozilla which is MozillaPL.

@johnfound:

"In the case in mentioned thread - images used in the software are part of the source and if the software is open source, images should be "open source" (i.e. to allow editing and modification) too. "

how is are the images part of the source? if it was part of the source that would mean the OS wouldn't compile / work without them suprisingly it does, so ergo its not part of the source. also you can use propriatory in GPL if you have permission its just that u cant use GPL in propriatory go read the GPL and if you find something the rest of us missed including RH, SuSE, Novell, Cobind, come back and tell us

If OS runs equally with and without your images, why these images should be a part of the distribution???
Anyway, actually I am not a part of MenuetOS developement team. IMHO, the team should decide what images and sources have to be included in official MeOS distribution. Note, that in all cases you are free to make your own distributions that includes parts, not licensed under GPL and even not open source at all (of cource you can't change the license for the programs not written by you).

Regards

because mike wanted them there. mike is the project leader now, since ville left

Was Mike aware of your intentions of maintaining them unmodified or is a lately expressed desire?

I'm going to talk to Andrew before commenting.

Mike.

i've come to the conclusion that i will allow the GUI to be part of the GPL but the Icons will not as i have spent over 500hrs on the icon set improving scrapping and starting icons again, so the icons arent GPL but the GUI "mpanel, Mmenu, Windows Style when implemented" will be GPL

Mike,
Is there any chance that non-gpl items are listed in a textfile with the distro and/or something indicating the license next to it on the download page?

Sorry again Andrew.

Hi,

the 3Com driver is not GPL'd at all. Take a look at the licence terms in its header. It runs under a fine BSD-like licence. I don't think that merely because of that fact you would have to throw it out.

Endre.

Just out of curiosity, why is it such a big deal?
As long as credit is given to you for the original icons why are you against modifying them?
What would you rather have, your icons not used at all or your icons modified? I can see if you were selling the icons, then it would be taking money away from you and used elsewhere. But if they are using it in the same application, but only modified, I can't see why you are against it.
It would make more since that your 500hrs would be more wasted if people didn't use your icons at all. At least if the icons are modified, your work has went to good use.

Kind of like saying I am providing a hard disk driver, but it is illegal for you to modify it because of all the hard work I put into it. This would mean this driver could never be improved and would have to be scrapped in order to improve it.

If the software value is valid in that time, maybe the license is important.

without GPL, who can help menuetos out? which can be the others fucking business??

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It seems to me, none of my business
the fucking human only lives .0~ whole universe time which can be less than a dinosaur.

i am selling usage rights of my icons though, also there are projects using my icons, so you see i may not rely on my icons to fed me but they do help me with income. menuetOS get free usage of the icons, in an unmodified state, the GUI is now GPL just the icons arent.

also just something to think over, if GPL is so good how comes the GPL isnt GPL?

Having discussed things with Andrew, I will remove the icons that Andrew has created from the distribution and place a link to them on the 'applications' page.

I missunderstood that Andrew did not want his icons released under the GPL, ( or any other 'free' licence) so their inclusion on the distribution was a mistake. Please dont criticise Andrew for this; Just because we are happy to give away thousands of hours of work for free, doesn't mean that everyone is!

Mike.

http://www.csc.com/features/2004/uploads/LEF_OPENSOURCE.pdf (7.8MB)

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