Does SCO distribute XFce or XFce4?

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Jack Coates wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 08:28, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> > On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, john-thomas richards wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 10:46:53AM -0500, csm at Lunar-Linux.org wrote:
> > > > Some of you may have seen that Fyodor (Nmap author) has removed SCO's 
> > > > right to distribute Nmap.
> > > 
> > > nmap is licensed under the gpl.  how can one remove another's right to
> > > distribute it since the gpl *guarantees* said right?
> > 
> > what it boils down to is that fyodor _owns_ the copyright on the nmap 
> > code, so he can pretty much do with it whatever he damn well pleases, 
> > including adding or removing restrictions at will.  at the point that 
> > you add restrictions, however, an argument can be made that it isn't 
> > truly licensed under the GPL anymore.  by rights he should rename his 
> > license, and basically say "This sofware is licensed under the terms of 
> > the Foobarbaz license.  The use and redistribution terms are identical 
> > to those of the GNU GPL, with the added restriction that SCO is not 
> > allowed to...  blah blah blah."
> > 
> 
> I was going to disagree, but after reviewing the GPL at
> http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.txt, I think you're right. The nmap team
> claims their action is covered under Clause 4 by SCO distributing nmap
> on a "Supplemental Open Source CD" while acting to invalidate the GPL
> with their other products. That's a non sequiter, unfortunately, because
> the GPL doesn't say you have to whole-heartedly agree in order to
> distribute. To stretch an analogy, someone trying to overthrow the
> system of driver's licenses doesn't get their driver's license
> automatically revoked.

interesting... yeah, i just read the actual announcement on 
insecure.org instead of continuing to shoot off my mouth w/o knowing 
what's going on.  my original interpretation of this wasn't quite 
right.  well, i believe what i said was still correct in general about 
licensing, but that's not the route fyodor chose to take.  he's 
claiming that the GPL itself terminates SCO's rights to redistribute 
nmap.  however, after re-reading clause 4 of the GPL, i don't see how it 
applies at all.  section 4 states (in my terms) that if you violate the 
GPL _with regard to the program in question_, then your rights to 
redistribute the program under the GPL are terminated.  clause 4 is 
about attempting to relicense the software in a manner that violates the 
GPL, or to copy or change the software in a manner that violates the 
GPL.

so, with my IANAL disclaimer, i don't really think the nmap guys have 
grounds to disallow SCO's distribution of nmap in the way they've done 
it.  they should have just done what i mentioned in my last email...

	-brian