[Gllug] Hypothetical GPL question

[Alex Hudson]

On Tuesday 09 October 2001 09:19, you wrote:
> That's interesting, presumably it means "preferred by the people who
> started the project".

It means the best form available. If you programmed something for Perl, and 
then translated it to some obfuscated form for release, I suspect it would 
fail the test. Perhaps bad faith would have to be shown though.

> So say you use SSADM or something similar to aid your software creation
> process, does this mean you have to release all this under the GPL?

SSADM is not a method of programming software, it's a development method. It 
would be precisely the same if I had programmed it in B or something. We're 
only interested in the final code, not necessarily the design documents.

It's also worth remembering: the GPL only comes into effect in one condition 
- and that is distribution. The majority of people who use Linux, for 
example, don't need to accept the GPL in daily life in the same way as an MS 
EULA.

> What about if you use Glade or something to design your GUI. Do the
> Glade project files have to be distributed or just the C it generates?

The Glade project files.

> What about if you use some sort of complex pre-compiler that *isn't* GPL
> and that only you have? You could release the source code but it
> wouldn't be much use because no-one else could use it.

People distribute GPL'd apps which were written in Visual Studio, yes.

The GPL *only* covers copying, nothing else. Rights of use (etc.) are 
inferred by the release really - you don't need to accept the GNU GPL to 
actually use the software in the first place. It's a very simple licence when 
you understand it.

Cheers,

			Alex.

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