git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: Gitbox

From
JJJoshua Juran <jjuran@gmail.com>
Date
Apr 14, 2011, 04:59 UTC
Message-ID
<9D7CA8EE-F170-4BBB-80B8-B342E7D1709A@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<4DA65BB6.5080909@medialab.com>
On Apr 13, 2011, at 7:28 PM, Chris Perkins wrote:
Show 6 quoted lines
> You can't make commercial works based on GPL licensed software.   
> Without
> Git there is no Gitbox. End of story.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, were I then perhaps I'd know solidly one way or  
> other.

Or, you could consult a lawyer. Or you could see what Git authors and/ or the FSF think about it.

> But I will add this, some on our team would very much like to
> incorporate Git into one of our own upcoming commercial products.
I imagine some of your users would like that as well.
> Code-wise in the same manner as Gitbox has done.

As well as ProjectBuilder/Xcode. The same company that released their Objective-C compiler front end to GCC under the GPL, demonstrating Steve Jobs' willingness to comply with RMS' interpretation of the GPL, also created their own proprietary GUI front end to GCC tools. ProjectBuilder/Xcode has existed for over two decades, and to my knowledge no objection has been lodged. Clearly, there is a critical difference between linking and invoking.

> But we aren't going to
> do this, because the GPL license for Git clearly states that we  
> cannot.

Then you may lose some of your users to competitors who more accurately interpret the GPL and are clear what rights they've been granted.

Josh
Previous: Randal L. SchwartzNext: Martin Langhoff
Message 6 of 10 in “Re: Gitbox”
  1. Joshua JuranApr 13, 2011
  2. Chris PerkinsApr 14, 2011
  3. Randal L. SchwartzApr 14, 2011
  4. Chris PerkinsApr 14, 2011
  5. Randal L. SchwartzApr 14, 2011
  6. Joshua JuranApr 14, 2011
  7. Martin LanghoffApr 14, 2011
  8. Tim SmithApr 15, 2011
  9. Victor EngmarkApr 14, 2011
  10. Martin LanghoffApr 14, 2011

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.