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authorlandley <landley@driftwood>2006-09-27 00:45:05 -0400
committerlandley <landley@driftwood>2006-09-27 00:45:05 -0400
commit13bab2f09e9189c2b1e83ae37a1134108f9479cf (patch)
tree148ceea436c59c9a7c3e4deec638b52b16e307e5 /www
downloadtoybox-13bab2f09e9189c2b1e83ae37a1134108f9479cf.tar.gz
Starting a new project. Just a bit past the "hello world" stage...
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+<!--#include file="header.html" -->
+
+<h2>Toybox is licensed under the terms of GPLv2.</h2>
+
+<p>The complete text of the General Public License version 2 is included in the
+file LICENSE in each source tarball. Version 2 is the only version of
+this license which toybox is distributed under. (I.E. It doesn't have the
+strange "or later" dual license some projects have.)</p>
+
+<h2>Clarifications</h2>
+
+<p>The GPL is a bit old and crufty in places, but it's still the best open
+source license there is, and lots of source code (like the Linux kernel) is
+distributed under it. Lots of de facto interpretations have sprung up to deal
+with things like the fact that it predates the internet service provider
+industry. Nothing in the rest of this page changes the actual license, so you
+can ignore the rest of this page if you're happy with a strict reading of
+GPLv2. But just to be clear, here's how the authors of this project are
+interpreting the sucker where it says something stupid.</p>
+
+<p>Section 1: <b>You have permission to rephrase the license notice on
+individual source files.</b> This doesn't mean you can change what license the
+code is under, or that you can remove other people's copyright notices. You
+certainly can't change the test of the GPL itself. What it means is that if
+you use this code in a project that distributes source in zip files instead of
+tarballs, or your package's copy of the GPLv2 text isn't in a file called
+"LICENSE", it's silly to preserve an obsolete notice verbatim and add some
+kind of "correction" after the old notice.</p>
+
+<p>Some lawyers seem to think a strict reading of GPLv2 section 1 (and later
+sections including section 1 by reference) requires maintaining old notices in
+perpetuity. Even if you had code that used to be dual licensed, but created
+a derived work that's just under one of the two licenses, so the old license
+notice is not just strange or misleading but actually incorrect for the new
+file. (For example, splicing GPLv2 only code into a dual "GPLv2 or later"
+project produces a result that can be distributed under the terms of GPLv2,
+but not GPLv3. The result cannot be distributed under the "or later" part,
+so a license notice saying it could is factually wrong.)</p>
+
+<p>I don't know if we're ever going to put any dual licensed code into the tree,
+but I want to head that one off now. The actual license text is the important
+thing, the per-file notice is a courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>Section 2: <b>We don't put the change history in comments in the source
+code, we put it in our source control system.</b> We have source control for a
+reason. That's where this information belongs, and that's where we put it.
+It's world readable on the web, and you can download a snapshot of the whole
+repository if you like. The GPL predates modern source control systems, but
+this project does not.</p>
+
+<p>Section 3: <b>We distribute source code through the internet.</b> If
+your "written offer" includes a URL, and the source code remains anonymously
+downloadable at that location for three years after you stop distributing
+binaries, life is good as far as we're concerned. (No, you can't encrypt it,
+or require a login, or otherwise be slimy bastards acting in bad faith. We'll
+come after you if you're not satisfying the terms of the license, this is just
+talking about how you can satisfy those terms without having to mail physical
+media. Most people are already doing it this way.)</p>
+
+<p>Also, <a href="http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/06/23/1728205&tid=150">what the FSF did to Mepis</a> was inexcusable. (Further discussed
+in <a href="http://www.busybox.net/lists/busybox/2006-June/022797.html">this
+thread</a>.) Mepis partnered with Ubuntu, put out a press release quoting
+Ubuntu's founder about how cool the partnership was, and then pointed to
+Ubuntu's source repository for packages it was using unmodified Ubuntu versions
+of. As far as we're concerned, Mepis didn't do anything wrong, and the FSF
+was a bully. The FSF was wrong when it tried to make an example out of a
+company that was acting in good faith.</p>
+
+<p>To make sure the FSF doesn't pick on anyone else against our wishes, we're
+clarifying that if you didn't modify the source code, and the binaries you're
+distributing can be entirely regenerated from a public upstream source,
+pointing to that upstream source in good faith is good enough for us, as long
+as they don't mind the extra bandwidth and the correct source code stays
+available at that location for the duration of your responsiblity to
+redistribute source.</p>
+
+<p>This doesn't mean it's fair for a Fortune 500 company to point millions of
+people at somebody's home DSL line (certainly not without asking first).
+And if the source that's available there isn't the complete source you used
+to produce your binaries, you haven't fulfilled your obligations either.
+And if the code stops being available at that location, you're not off the
+hook and have to find a new location or put up your own mirror. And obviously
+it has to be the _right_ source code (if you modified it, we want the patch,
+and claiming you didn't modify it when you actually did is fraud).</p>
+
+<p>This is not a "get out of jail free" card: It's still your responsibility to
+make the source available. We're just saying you can reasonably delegate to
+something like Sourceforge or ibilbio and as long as everyone who wants the
+source can get it, we're happy. If the site you point to objects or goes down,
+responsibility obviously reverts to you.</p>
+
+<p>But if this project needs mirrors, we'll _ask_. (Most likely we'll ask
+someone like sourceforge, OSL, ISC, ibiblio, archive.org...)</p>
+
+<p>Section 9: <b>Does not apply to this project.</b> We're specifying the
+version, it's version 2. There is no "or later versions" clause to require
+interpreting.
+
+<hr>
+<pre>
+ GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
+ Version 2, June 1991
+
+ Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+ 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
+ Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
+ of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
+
+ Preamble
+
+ The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
+freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
+License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
+software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
+General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
+Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
+using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
+the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
+your programs, too.
+
+ When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
+price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
+have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
+this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
+if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
+in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
+
+ To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
+anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
+These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
+distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
+
+ For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
+gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
+you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
+source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
+rights.
+
+ We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
+(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
+distribute and/or modify the software.
+
+ Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
+that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
+software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
+want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
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+
+ Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
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+program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
+patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
+
+ The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
+modification follow.
+
+ GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
+ TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
+
+ 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
+a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
+under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
+refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
+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 and/or translated into another
+language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
+the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
+
+Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
+covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
+running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
+is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
+Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
+Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
+
+ 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
+source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
+conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
+copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
+notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
+and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
+along with the Program.
+
+You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
+you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
+
+ 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
+of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
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+above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
+
+ a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
+ stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
+
+ b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
+ whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
+ part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
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+
+ c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
+ when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
+ interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
+ announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
+ notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
+ a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
+ these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
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+ the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
+
+These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
+identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
+and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
+themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
+sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
+distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
+on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
+this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
+entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
+
+Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
+your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
+exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
+collective works based on the Program.
+
+In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
+with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
+a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
+the scope of this License.
+
+ 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
+under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
+Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
+
+ a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
+ source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
+ 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
+
+ b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
+ years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
+ cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
+ machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
+ distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
+ customarily used for software interchange; or,
+
+ c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
+ to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
+ allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
+ received the program in object code or executable form with such
+ an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
+
+The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
+making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
+code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
+associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
+control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
+special exception, the source code distributed need not include
+anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
+form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
+operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
+itself accompanies the executable.
+
+If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
+access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
+access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
+distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
+compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
+
+ 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
+except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
+otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
+void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
+However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
+this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
+parties remain in full compliance.
+
+ 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
+signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
+distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
+prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
+modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
+Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
+all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
+the Program or works based on it.
+
+ 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
+Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
+original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
+these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
+restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
+You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
+this License.
+
+ 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
+infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
+conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
+otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
+excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
+distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
+License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
+may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
+license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
+all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
+the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
+refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
+
+If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
+any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
+apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
+circumstances.
+
+It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
+patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
+such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
+integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
+implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
+generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
+through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
+system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
+to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
+impose that choice.
+
+This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
+be a consequence of the rest of this License.
+
+ 8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
+certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
+original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
+may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
+those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
+countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
+the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
+
+ 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
+of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
+be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
+address new problems or concerns.
+
+Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
+specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
+later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
+either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
+Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
+this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
+Foundation.
+
+ 10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
+programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
+to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
+Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
+make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
+of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
+of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
+
+ NO WARRANTY
+
+ 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
+FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
+OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
+PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
+OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
+MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
+TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
+PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
+REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
+
+ 12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
+WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
+REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
+INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
+OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
+TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
+YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
+PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+ END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
+</pre>
+<!--#include file="footer.html" -->