Re: [Emc-developers] Spotted on Ali-Express (Via the forum)

[EBo <eb...@sa...>]

Len,

Your questions are complicated.  In order to know what you can and 
cannot do you have to look at every single part that makes up the code 
base - for example are you calling any libraries which are specifically 
GPL?  That will cause you the same problem just one level down.  
Remember that there is also the LGPL which (at least from my 
understanding) that you can link in a project without being required to 
also release under GPL, but any changes to those libraries would have to 
be released open source.  So, to answer your question you have to look 
at whatever you use to rewrite the UI.

There is also another aspect that you have not touched on - underlying 
intent and community involvement.  If you basically take someone’s ideas 
that were developed here and rewrite them and then make a new version 
and release it under a closed source commercial license you might well 
piss a few people off.  So, is PathPilot your original work?  Did others 
contribute to it?  If the answers are No and No, such that this is 100% 
your project and you just want to make sure that you are in compliance 
with the licenses, then as the author you can do so without needing to 
ask anyone.  In fact you can rebrand your code to any license you 
choose, but you will never be able to take away the GPL rights of any 
code you released in the past -- you just do not have to maintain it 
(for an odd bit of history on something like this look into Adaptive 
Clearing).  If it is not 100% your ideas and work, then it quickly gets 
muddled.  I would suggest that if you go this way that you do a 
clean-room re-engineering of the interface and use absolutely nothing 
from the original code base or UI -- start with basic principles and 
redesign from scratch.

One other thing about the community involvement - all the work of the 
folks here made it possible for you to make this other tools.  It is 
only because they made the source available to each other that you can 
even do this.  Part of that is giving back to the community in various 
ways (including source code).    Also, just because something is 
released open source does not mean that you cannot sell services or 
other products.  It will just look different.

   ... end 2.001379 (2c adjusted for inflation).

   EBo --

On Nov 6 2015 5:51 AM, Len Shelton wrote:
> Jeff,
>
> Doesn't that also apply to PathPilot, then? Or is it okay to build a 
> new
> UI and rebrand it?
>
>  >Len
>
>
>
> On 11/5/2015 7:02 PM, Jeff Epler wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 05, 2015 at 11:28:00AM -0500, Dave Cole wrote:
>>> GPL...  ?   As long as they state that they are not selling 
>>> LinuxCNC,
>>> how could get they get trouble with that?
>> Selling a PC with LinuxCNC preinstalled is "commercial 
>> distribution", so
>> absolutely they have to take several positive actions to be in
>> compliance with the GPL.  See the GPL version 2 section 3.
>>
>> Yes, I know that as a matter of practicality nobody is going to 'get
>> these guys' for copyright infringement, whether of LinuxCNC or Mach 
>> or
>> any other software.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> 
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