HP-41 modules and GPL

[Guenter Schink]

(04-08-2018 07:47 PM)hth Wrote:  I lift this out as a separate thread. The original discussion is in http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-10405.html in the "Not quite HP Calculators - but related" area.

As there has been a lot of discussions about the GPL license in that area of the forum recently and I mentioned that there are many HP-41 modules released under GPL, to which Ángel responded:

(04-02-2018 07:35 AM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  I'm not aware of any GPL-bound module in the set, but according to some forum members it seems I don't really understand what GPL is about.

FWIW all my modules are "FREEWARE". I understand that. Nuff said.

I'm the one that accused Ángel not really understanding what GPL is about. Please believe me that this is not mentioned offensive rather than summarizing what you are describing in this post. And Ángel will most probably reply again that he doesn't care much about this licensing issues.

Quote:I do understand that you are very generous as well as extremely productive, and I am very thankful for that.

But if we look at it closer on the overall picture, there may be an issue in how the GPL license is used in this community. I will now make you all aware by taking a quick (and most likely incomplete) tour around the TOS DVD:

Sandmath_44 4x4 from February 2015
Page 2
"No commercial usage of any kind is allowed."
"Published under the GNU software licence agreement."

Some years ago I posted in the old forum that there is no such thing as "GNU software license agreement" - at least Google doesn't find one at a cursory search. You'll be redirected to "General Public License". But this can't be what the author has in mind as the statement "No commercial usage of any kind is allowed." contradicts the GPL and thus invalidates it.
Conclusion: This is an undefined license statement except for the denial commercial use.

Quote:Does putting it on a 41CL board count as commercial usage? It does cost money.

Hmm ... The author provided Monte with this software himself. Doesn't this imply a waiver from the restriction? And the modules are the source code supported by the documentation.

So far my comments to Ángel's contributions

Günter