[Zope] Zope and the GPL poison pill

[Terry Kerr]

Hi,

I think the direction of this discussion has been lost.  The main
concern is with the distribution of GPL'd zope products as a part of
other products, commercial, proprietary, freeware, or not.  In this
case, does the GPL enforce that the product as a whole must be
distributed under the GPL?  The GPL states that it only applies to
"work based on the Program" defined as

"means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either
verbatim or with modifications..."

So from my understanding of this, and what others in this discussion
have said, this means that if you create a product that uses a GPL'd
product either by sub classing it or through other means, and you
distribute this GPL'd product with your own, with the GPL'd product
being modified or not, then your own product must also be GPL'd.  If
however you only provide a pointer in your distribution to the GPL'd
product, and it is up to the software installer to go and fetch the
GPL'd product, then you can distribute under any license that you wish.

On another note...I am not clear on the meaning of the terms in the
ZPL.  Is it possible to distribute your own product with its own license
(possibly the GPL) as a part of a standard un-modified zope distribution
with its terms and conditions intact (i.e., your product is in
lib/python/Products/ ), or in this case would your product automatically
fall under the ZPL?  Would you need to package your own product
completely separately for to to have its own license?

What do Digital Creations people have to say about this?  You have been
quiet so far ;-)

terry

--
Terry Kerr (terry@adroit.net)
Adroit Internet Solutions Pty Ltd (www.adroit.net)
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