GNU License Question

ieeestd802 · 01-31-2005, 01:21 PM

Hi,

If we made some changes to some GNU free distributed software. Are we obligated to make our changes available to public ?

Be specific, we are building a special website, and for that, we make quite some changes in httpd source code. Any experience users who visit our website will know that we made some changes to httpd source code. Are we obligated to make our changes (in source code )available to general public ? However, we are not sure if we completely understand the requirement of GNU license.

Thanks.

neal · 01-31-2005, 01:29 PM

apache isn't gpl'd. read the license.

jonaskoelker · 01-31-2005, 02:38 PM

I'd like to add that there isn't one 'GNU License'; there's GNU GPL (General Public License), which is probably what you (thought you) meant. There's also LGPL (Library/Lesser General Public License), FDL (Free Documentation License) and short ones of the form 'verbatim copying allowed'. And no, you're not required to hand out your changes to anyone. Bradley M. Kuhn discussed this in a talk he gave; there's a recording of it available in the audio-video section of www.gnu.org.

FYI-'ly yours,

Jonas