[sldev] Fwd: [Opensim-dev] Violating the GPL by looking (Re: Voice Module)

[Jason Giglio]

Nik Radford wrote:
> As far as I understand it, taking GPL code into BSD licensed code is fine,
> as long as that code is flagged somewhere saying that "this code came from
> a GPL license blah de blah" as long as the project is open source its
> fine, however if someone else was to make a derived work from the BSD code
> containing the GPL code and not distribute the source, then they would
> have to remove the GPL code, am I correct?

Yes.  The only issue here is for people that would use the mixed BSD/GPL 
code in a way that would violate the GPL.

This effectively means that you either must remove the GPL code, or 
treat the entire thing as GPL, in practice.  This is where the "viral" 
idea and FUD comes from.

It doesn't "infect" the BSD parts of the code though, you can always 
remove the GPL licensed parts and treat it as BSD once again.

The only possible way this could ever lead to a lawsuit is if a company 
created a closed fork of a mixed BSD/GPL product without removing the 
GPL parts first.


-Jason