Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin Professional

[<ra...@si...>]

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Barry wrote:

> Joe Cooper wrote:
>
>> Craig White wrote:
>> 
>>> ----
>>> good for you guys - I think that is a logical extension of the
>>> webmin/virtualmin product.
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks for the encouragement!  We felt that way too.  It just became 
>> apparent that it was the best way to answer the needs of commercial hosting 
>> providers, without causing any pain to users of the GPL version.
>> 
>> And thanks for all of the good advice.  I'll comment on each bit inline 
>> below.
>
>
> Glad this thread is continuing because I was wondering a bit more this 
> morning and hadn't had a chance to followup today.
>
> I am all for you guys making money, and if this is related to the Open 
> Country announcement then so be it,
>
> But I wonder how it is justified under the terms of GPL? If the original code 
> is
> GPL, isn;t all derivative code, and and with few exceptions with ways of 
> linking, everything attached to it GPL?
>
> And doesn't GPL require products that are released to customers, such as 
> professional ISPs to install on their own machines surely will get, isn't it 
> required that code be made available?
>
> Also, isn't it also the case that GPL requires availability to all when the 
> product (and code) is released, not on a preferential treatment?
>
> Now, I know you can charge for the reproduction or service of copying the 
> product and code, and you can charge what the market will bear. But the 
> product is still GPL and others can make the same product available at 
> whatever cost they deem appropriate.
>
> Maybe here is something more I am missing here - I woke up this morning 
> really hoping to find out webmin is actually BSD licensed, in which case you 
> would not need to disclose code and could have proprietary forks. Sadly that 
> doesn;t seem to be the case.
>
> So I am confused - what's the deal here?
>
> Best,
>
> Barry
>


   The confusion is that Usermin is released under a BSD license.  This is 
a bit different than a GPL (or even Sun's new CDDL).  It does allow it's 
inclusion without causing other included items to become BSD licensed, and 
it also allows inclusion in GPL stuff without becoming GPL.


 	---- Randy