I'm sorry, but the fact your still using words like "providing the
required offer" suggest you missed my point. The goals of Copyleft are not
*legally* possible. GPL and LGPL are just a smoke and mirrors game to give
the illusion that companies like Corel Corp and Abit must follow Copyleft.
In reality, Copyleft is nothing more than a moral and ethical guideline that
a redistributor *chooses* to follow (or not follow). For commeralized Linux
purposes, there is little incentive to follow the GPL *requests*. Since the
majority of the Linux Community could careless about the goals of Copyleft,
a product can be commerically viable without following the moral guidelines
provided by the Free Software Foundation and a minority of the Linux
Community.
However, since you request details regarding the Red Hat Application CDs,
I will provide it. There are eight applications I found which appear they
might be LGPL violations. While it is possible to produce a statically
linked Linux binary which does not use Glibc (by using a different
programming language or a third party Libc), these statically linked binary
share a fairly large number of strings and symbols in common with Glibc.
The majority of these applications produce a copyright banner when being run
but not a single one included a LGPL notice with the copyright banner. None
of the documentation I went through discussed that a LGPL work was
statically linked into the binaries. Anotherwords, there isn't even the
requested notice of use and hence an offer of object files. The likelyhood
that any correspondance will result in the company changing their ways is
unlikely. But, so what? Do we attack these companies just like Abit and
LinuxOne? Heck, Knox Software Corp won Linux World 1999 Editors' Choice
award! Do we recognize them as having an award winning product and then
boycott it? These are not bad companies or bad people, they are just
following the Linux Community standard waving some LGPL and GPL requests!
Oh well... here is the list:
Knox Software Corporation ARKC http://www.arkeia.com/
Server Application CD Knox/arkc-4.1.10-1.i386.rpm
Workstation Application CD Knox/arkc-4.1.10-1.i386.rpm
/usr/knox/bin/arkc
TAME (Tag Activated Markup Enhancer) http://www.tameable.com/
Server Application CD VirtualSellers/tame-4.10-4.i386.rpm
/home/httpd/cgi-bin/tame
/home/httpd/cgi-bin/tame_mysql
VSI Fax http://www.vsi.com/
Server Application CD VSI/vsifax-server-3_5-3_i386.rpm
/usr/local/vsifax3/bin/vfxstat
/usr/local/vsifax3/lbin/wfaxtcl
EZterm http://www.csvtech.com/
Workstation Application CD CSVTech/ezterm.rpm
/usr/bin/ezterm
HP OpenMail
Workstation Application CD
HP-OpenMail/clients/openmail-gui-6.0-1.i386.rpm
/usr/bin/X11/omgui
FlagShip
Workstation Application CD
Flagship/FlagShip-eval-4.48-7452.i386.rpm
Workstation Application CD Flagship/FlagShip-4.48-7452.i386.rpm
[ Ten applications which are statically linked ]
OpenLink
Workstation Application CD
OpenLink/openlink-agents-3.2-12.i386-glibc2.rpm
/usr/local/openlink/bin/sybc11_sv
VariCAD
Workstation Application CD VariCAD/VariCAD-7.2.0.3de-1.i386.rpm
/usr/bin/xvcad/glib/parts
As a side issue, I think the fact that this whole discussion is considered
off-topic only goes to prove my point. It wasn't always that Copyleft style
goals where not considered important to the development process. The
original Frenix (now known as Linux) license was even more strict than the
GPL regarding distribution terms. Linus ended up choosing the GPL, it
wasn't an accident. And it was choosen because the Copyleft goals where as
critical to the development process as the code it covered. The Linux
Community majority has spoken and now the only development discussion that
is important is the code regardless of how it get redistributed.
Personally, I think this is pritty sad and I think the death of Copyleft
should be noted in the archives of Linux kernel development.
Thanks.
>From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
>To: david@ultramaster.com
>Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: GPL violation is a Linux Community standard
>Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 17:12:16 +0100 (BST)
>
>If someone is providing static linked binaries against glibc and not
>providing
>the required offer to either provide a dynamic linked one or a .o file (ie
>an ld -r) of the application and it is on the Red Hat extra applications
>disk
>I'd like to know, along with a copy of the correspondance involved.
>
>Im sure the same applies for SuSE and any other vendor
>
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