Am Dienstag, den 10.02.2009, 16:31 -0500 schrieb Jackson Tam:

Hi,

I work for a company that is interested in including Gimp on a CD-Rom. The CD-Rom will also have custom photo frames and clip art. The inclusion of Gimp is meant to save the effort of downloading the Gimp software since this product is aimed at kids who may not have internet access. Can anyone direct me to who I can contact for permission?

You don't need permission as long as you follow the rules of the license. As Gimp is under the GPL the most important rule is to add the source code on the CD too.

Regards, Tobias

P.S. The Gimp Team is always very thankful for donations. ;) http://gimp.org/donating/

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 4:44 PM, Jackson Tam wrote:

Hi Tobias,

Yep, we are planning on making a donation J. Thanks for the reply and I hope you could help me with a few more questions. It would be greatly appreciated.

You might find this page (and the entire site, actually) useful: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html

Chris

On Tuesday 10 February 2009, Jackson Tam wrote:

1. Can you tell me what the source code we need to include looks like specifically? If we were to simply include the Gimp installer (the setup.exe file), the source code is already packaged inside, right?

Unless someone here can give you a better answer, maybe ask the windows packager at http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/contact.html . But sinze the ...setup.exe is about the same size as the source code packages themselves, I don't think they can be included already. You can find the sources linked from the gimp-win home page (the link named "Releases"). There select the release you're interested in and get the source packages (architecture: "platform independent", usually just archives in some format), gtk+, babl, gegl and gimp, maybe the libexif there as well.

2. Do you know if this permission applies internationally too? We're interested in distributing to the US, Mexico, and maybe Europe.

The GPL is a license that grant you extra rights (beyond use and those rights you have in each country anyway), if you agree to it. Its creators do their best to make it as widely applicable as possible, but, as Chris wrote, have a look at their site for more information.

3. Is the 2007 GPL the most current?

There's no 2007 GPL (only versions, like 2 or 3), the relevant one is the one found in the "LICENSE" and "COPYING" files in each source package. (AFAIK it's version 2 or later for the current releases.)

4. And lastly, do I need to contact anyone else besides you? (The company I work for is a bit afraid of GPL's since there is no direct contact person. So we want to cover all bases).

The GPL is kind of an agreement between all the authors (so there cannot be just one contact in most cases) of a program and its users. The authors offer the users the GPL's conditions. If the users accept, they can redistribute and copy the program (under these conditions). If they don't, they don't gain the right to copy the software and no harm is done to anyone. (You and your company are the users in this case.) It's your choice to either accept the conditions or not.

I am not a lawyer, but that's basically how I understand the GPL and explain it to people :)

And there's no reason to be afraid of it, the GPL is not there to restrict usage or distribution, but just tries to guarantee this freedom to your customers as well. So as long as you tell them "Hey, GIMP is free, just copy it and give it to your friends as well if you want." probably nobody will bite you.

Daniel

You don't need permission as long as you follow the rules of the license. As Gimp is under the GPL the most important rule is to add the source code on the CD too.

By the way, isn't it enough to publish it on the net? E.g. one could provide a link to the gimp website for the original source, plus publish their modification on their own website (or include only these parts on the CD)?

The Linux kernel is also GLP, but the majority of Linux CD distributions does not ship the source.

Regards, Alpar

On Wednesday 11 February 2009 08:46:26 Alpár Jüttner wrote:

You don't need permission as long as you follow the rules of the license. As Gimp is under the GPL the most important rule is to add the source code on the CD too.

By the way, isn't it enough to publish it on the net? E.g. one could provide a link to the gimp website for the original source, plus publish their modification on their own website (or include only these parts on the CD)?

Pointing to gimp website is not enough. They must provide the version of the source, tha binary is built from, from their own servers and yes, link to it is enough if they do not wish to use the space on the disk for a tarball.

The Linux kernel is also GLP, but the majority of Linux CD distributions does not ship the source.

No, but they have to provide it from their repros and they do AFAIK.

Von: "Jackson Tam"

3. Is the 2007 GPL the most current?

The most current version of the GNU GPL is version 3, but for the current stable version of GIMP 2.6.x, GNU GPL version 2 does apply:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

4. And lastly, do I need to contact anyone else besides you? (The company I work for is a bit afraid of GPL's since there is no direct contact person. So we want to cover all bases).

Please do yourself a favor and read about the GNU GPL a bit more. The questions above indicate that you might have heard about it, but do not know what it really is yet.

The FAQ might be very interesting for you:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html

HTH, Michael

Von: "Alpár Jüttner"

By the way, isn't it enough to publish it on the net? E.g. one could provide a link to the gimp website for the original source, plus publish their modification on their own website (or include only these parts on the CD)?

This is handled by the FAQ:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#SourceAndBinaryOnDifferentSites

The GNU GPL FAQ is a must-read for anyone who does want to distribute GNU (L)GPL software, and a should-read for anyone who does engage in discussions about this topic. :)

HTH, Michael

The Linux kernel is also GLP [sic], but the majority of Linux CD distributions does not ship the source.

Oh yes they do. Not on single-CD installation disks, but all Linux distros provide source package files for all Open Source packages they provide, from their own repositories. Usually the "original" tarball included in such source packages is *exactly* the same one that is or was available from the package's upstream, and the distro-specific changes, if any, are then as separate diff files.

--tml

By the way, isn't it enough to publish it on the net? E.g. one could provide a link to the gimp website for the original source, plus publish their modification on their own website (or include only these parts on the CD)?

This is handled by the FAQ:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#SourceAndBinaryOnDifferentSites

That text is just as fussy as the whole GPL license. It may be because of my poor English, but even after reading it twice, I have no idea if it is legal for example (assuming I made some extension to GIMP) * to sell a CD with my version of GIMP and provide the its source on my web-site.
* to provide the source of my changes on my site, add a link to GIMP website without any agreement, but periodically check if gimp.org and the gimp project is alive, and publish the source on my site only if they are dead.

Am I against the low if I put a binary gimp package from debian.org on my web page without doing the same with the source package?

Am I against the low if I make the /usr directory (where all the GLP binaries are) of my debian linux server available through anonymous ftp?

Best regards, Alpar

The GNU GPL FAQ is a must-read for anyone who does want to distribute GNU (L)GPL software, and a should-read for anyone who does engage in discussions about this topic. :)

HTH, Michael

On Wed, 2009-02-11 at 12:19 +0200, Tor Lillqvist wrote:

The Linux kernel is also GLP [sic], but the majority of Linux CD distributions does not ship the source.

Oh yes they do. Not on single-CD installation disks, but all Linux distros provide source package files for all Open Source packages they provide, from their own repositories.

I mean, it is distributed on a different media, and not “from the same place” or "next to the binaries".

Regards, Alpar

Usually the "original" tarball
included in such source packages is *exactly* the same one that is or was available from the package's upstream, and the distro-specific changes, if any, are then as separate diff files.

--tml

-------- Original-Nachricht --------

Datum: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:05:58 +0000 Von: "Alpár Jüttner"
An: Michael Schumacher
CC: gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU Betreff: Re: [Gimp-developer] Gimp on a Commercial CD-Rom ?

By the way, isn't it enough to publish it on the net? E.g. one could provide a link to the gimp website for the original source, plus

publish

their modification on their own website (or include only these parts

on

the CD)?

This is handled by the FAQ:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#SourceAndBinaryOnDifferentSites

That text is just as fussy as the whole GPL license. It may be because of my poor English,

The GNU GPL is available in several translation, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-translations.html

Some of the sites might also offer translations of the FAQ, I didn't check this though.

but even after reading it twice, I have no idea if it is legal for example (assuming I made some extension to GIMP)

* to sell a CD with my version of GIMP and provide the its source on my web-site.

This is covered by an FAQ entry:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeWithSourceOnInternet

GNU GPL v3 does make this legal; it's also common for GNU GPL v2 software, but you are required to ship the source by other means if someone requests this.

* to provide the source of my changes on my site, add a link to GIMP website without any agreement, but periodically check if gimp.org and the gimp project is alive, and publish the source on my site only if they are dead.

No.

See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributingSourceIsInconvenient

It's in your own best interest to provide the source. Otherwise you're unnecessarily providing leverage to someone who might be looking for a reason to get your company into legal trouble.

HTH, Michael

Quoting Alpár Jüttner :

You don't need permission as long as you follow the rules of the license. As Gimp is under the GPL the most important rule is to add the source code on the CD too.

By the way, isn't it enough to publish it on the net? E.g. one could provide a link to the gimp website for the original source, plus publish their modification on their own website (or include only these parts on the CD)?

No, it is not sufficient. There are some alternatives to including the source code on the CD, but the easiest solution is to just include the source code. By doing this, all obligations are fulfilled at the time the CD is distributed.

The source code for GIMP is about 15Mb which, while not insubstantial, should not be overly taxing on a 700Mb CD. If the distributor would rather, the source code could be provided on a second CD which is provided to the recipient in the same package.

If the source code is not included with the GIMP CD, the distributor is obligated to provide that source code for a period of three years following the distribution of the CD. The distributor may charge a nominal fee for processing such a request.

The Software Freedom Law Center has produced a nice guide for distributing GPL software which is available at:

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html