RE: [cobalt-users] Cobalt and the GPL.

["Dan Kriwitsky" <webhosting@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I had a rant going when my lovely NT box BSOD'd on me.
> Try again.  Somebody had posted the details of the Cobalt
> license.  In short:
>
> 1. I am not a lawyer
> 2. Looks to me like Cobalt's claim that their software is
> a "valuable trade secret" is bogus
> 3. IMHO they cannot stop people redistributing the restore CD
>
> These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole.  If
> identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
> and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
> themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
> sections when you distribute them as separate works.  But when you
> distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
> on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
> this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
> entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
>

Perhaps if their restore CD only restored the Cobalt written parts of the
server and not the Linux codes that they just modified under the GPL, they'd
be covered.
--
Dan Kriwitsky