Playing PSF rips on OS X?

Originally Posted by CelticWhisper

Bannister is a scumbag who (somehow, $DEITY only knows how) gets the rights to port open-source programs to Mac OS X and then strips out their functionality, only to include it in a closed-source, for-pay plugin of his own design. It's a gigantic slap in the face to everything the OSS movement stands for, and the man honestly deserves to be shot like the crazed, rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth animal he is.

While I'm no fan of Richard Bannister, he has every legal right to do what he does. The source code of the original GPL versions of the software is still available if someone else wishes to make a port. A port which would undoubtedly be better than that produced by Bannister, due to improvements from the community.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by CelticWhisper

I was under the impression that releasing parts of GPLed software under a closed-source license constituted a GPL violation.

The copyright holder can place the software under multiple licenses, if he wishes. He retains most of the rights to his software under the GPL. If he decides to license the software to Richard Bannister separately under a non-free license, that's his legal right, as reluctantly acknowledged by GNU and the FSF.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....eUnderGPLAndNF

In that case, Bannister would not be subject to the terms of the GPL, since his rights to the code are not derived from the GPL. The sole license he holds to that code is a non-free license. On the other hand, if you obtain a piece of software under the GPL, and then attempt to release part of that code, or a modified version of that software under anything other than the GPL, that is a violation, since your rights to modify and distributethat software are derived from the GPL.

Software is only covered by the GPL if you accept the terms of that license. Of course, if you don't accept the license, you have no legal right to use the software, to distribute it or to make derivative works based upon it. Bannister has sidestepped that issue by obtaining the rights under a separate license.

If a programer wishes to create a non-free fork of a piece of software covered under the GPL, he must first reject the terms of the GPL, and then contact the copyright holder, usually the author, and ask him if he will consider licensing the code to him under a separate non-free license. Most free software authors will probably state that this is not an option. Some others will offer to discuss terms.

There's nowhere I can't reach.