Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 14th May 2006 15:02 UTC, submitted by Matthew Oliver
"We have received an email claiming that the Kororaa Xgl Live CD is in violation of the GPL. I have been researching this as much as I can, asking many prominent people in the Linux world for their opinion. So far, no-one has agreed with the email, however a few have said to seek legal advice, which I cannot afford to do (but can't afford not to do, if I want to continue the Live CD). As such, the Live CD has been put on hold, until I can sort this out. If I cannot sort this out I will be forced to cease work on the Xgl Live CD."
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Member since:
2005-07-02
Just one question. How does having you download it and making it available in an ISO any different? why is medium so important?
I guess the argument would be that it's not the medium, but the bundling.
But even then, I don't believe it's a problem to distribute both on the same CD, as long the kernel isn't precompiled with the kernel.
I believe that distributing both kernel and NVIDIA driver is perfectly legal (as long as the distribution respects NVIDIA's license, which I believe it would). All you have to do is keep them separate, then allow the user to link the two once they're installed (with a simple script that requires their consent).
You can distribute GPLed and proprietary software on the same medium without problems. You can't, on the other hand, redistribute a GPLed piece of software (such as the kernel) that contains proprietary modifications/additions.
The real question is, how does Kororaa do it, and what can it do to solve this if there is indeed a copyright violation.