Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Dave D. <dde...@es...>]

Ethan A Merritt <merritt@u.washington.edu> writes:

>>  * Permission to modify the software is granted, but not the right to
>>  * distribute the complete modified source code.
>
> Actually, I believe that distribution by CVS is exactly in line
> with that requirement. A CVS server, internally, is in fact a large
> set of sequential patches applied to a base version.  That is what
> lets you back-track to any previous date's version.  The fact that
> the server is capable of applying the patches for you on the server
> side, as well as handing you the base code and the separate patches,
> is a matter of convenience rather than substance.   
>


Suppose I set up a rival cvs, drop in a source release as
version 1, and then just start hacking.

a) can I put the cvs onto the internet, and allow anyone to connect to
download any version (including the latest) of my forked gnuplot ?

b) suppose I instead set up a cron job to, every night, upload to a file
server a cut of the head revision and a set of diffs from #1 to the
head revision. Now anyone can download a set of diffs to apply
locally, or they can download the tar of the head revision, which is
more convenient.


(b) definitely seems to violate the spirit of the license at
least. Yet I can't really see much difference between (a) and (b).



dd
-- 
Dave Denholm              <dde...@es...>       http://www.esmertec.com