[development] Modules that integrate non-GPL PHP appsviolate the GPL.

[Laura Scott]

On Sep 7, 2007, at 2:32 PM, Larry Garfield wrote:

> (This email, by the way, is copyright 2007 Larry Garfield.   
> Forwarding it, including quoting it in a reply, counts as  
> redistribution and is illegal under modern US copyright law without  
> license.  License to redistribute this email and its contents are  
> hereby granted to all readers under the GNU GPL.  That does not in  
> any way shape or form diminish the copyright claim of Larry  
> Garfield upon the work herein.  Welcome to modern copyright law.)

But what about all the servers that are passing this email along  
through the net? What about all the people using Yahoo and GMail --  
is reading a GPL-licensed email on a proprietary system a violation?  
Shall GPL emails be distributed and read only on GPL systems?

Okay, that's being silly. However, I do not intend to muddy the  
waters. I'm wondering if we can agree on the questions at hand....

Where the line is drawn that makes something a derivative of Drupal  
(or whatever GPL-licensed system) seems to be the issue that will be  
at the crux of any legal challenge down the line, and sorry, I don't  
believe there is any cut-and-dried interpretation, except in the  
minds of advocates, and lawyers with vested interests. Sorting out  
these kinds of issues is what courts are for.

So isn't the issue, then, what D.o should do about modules that claim  
to be GPL but possibly may not legitimately be so? If the module  
creator says the module is licensed as GPL, is that not enough? Or is  
it D.o's job to research all possible ways the module might touch a  
non-GPL system and, thereby, enforce what seems to be one not-quite- 
universal interpretation of GPL?

Laura