And it’s not, if that binary is dangerous the author has no responsibility of the deceiving, but that binary must have or the source code or the original written offer, as it’s being distributed as software X, not as software XX, one of two has to be present with the binary, and the original author has to respond to the written offer.
Please be my guest and ask to the FSF, they are the ones that told me all this, I’m not interpreting anything.
Sorry, I ignored the context. Because of question 1 it is clear that there was a written offer and that’s why the second question only dealt with this case.
However, I don’t agree with this conclusion you brought up:
If we take the case that the Author provides both the binaries and source code and person B only downloads the binaries and shares them with person C. (Now person B is violating the GPL.)
According to my understanding, the Author doesn’t have to provide the source code to person C, even though that person has the binaries.
As I said one of two, source or offer, has to accompany the binary when it’s being distributed.
If person B don’t share the sources then it’s in violation of the GPL, if the sources were made available to him (no need to ask for the sources, they must be made available to person B automatically, or the written offer) , if there were no sources together with the binary but instead there was a written offer he has to provide the written offer.
So the author has to provide the sources to the owner of the binary in case that binary was not ORIGINALLY provided with the sources and it was provided with a written offer.
If the sources were present with the binary, then B MUST provide those sources and there is no responsibility of providing such source code by the original author, since the author already provided it with the binary, and there is no written offer.
But keep in mind that if person B distributed the binary without the source, then person B is in violation of the license. (of course, not the author).
As I said, there will always be people that may break the license, and those people are the ones that will be in violation of the license.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think like you, hypocrite for me, is to talk all the time about the work that it costs you to develop a software, about the money you are going to lose if you copy it or distribute it without paying anything, at the same time that you are using the Blender code for your projects without having paid anything by redistributing your software with the free work that others have developed.
Why can you do that? because the GPL exists, because some people have to respect it because it benefits you, and you can skip it when it hurts you?
What do I do to the community? defend the rights of the community, defend the development of Blender, defend the work of the Blender dev, that we have financed between all of us.
If all that doesn’t seem reasonable to you to defend, maybe you should think if you value our community as much as I do.
For author, it is very important to know in practise that the administrative duties may not explode because someone somewhere violated the GPL.
Also people who somehow got binaries have to understand that only a written offer gives them the right to ask author for the source code. Otherwise, there might have occurred a GPL violation somewhere and author is not responsible to handle that.
I guess 1 year of full time dev for addons like archipack, cad transform, refine tracking, and many contrib in 2.79 addons are a good starting point to talk about added value to the “community”.
Gpl also grant you the right to try to make things better, especially parts where the bf dont see any interrest to put some efforts, and at some point the same than bf, independant devs need funding to do so.
My feeling is that the question here is not about gpl as a mean to get sources, but as a mean to get things for free, hence the word “hypocrit”.
I know who you are, and I know what you have developed
and that’s why I haven’t called you a hypocrite at any time
Maybe you should do the same, and know first who I am and what I have done for the community, before insinuating that I am a hypocrite.
I don’t want things for free, I want things to be free, I believe in collaborative development, and I accepted the GPL license with all its consequences the day I put that license in all my developments…
If a person who fulfills his commitments… always, not only when these commitments favor me.
I don’t pretend that your way of life disappears or is damaged, but the GPL in Blender is before all your developments… if you didn’t believe in it, why do you take advantage of it?
Completely agree.
It’s important to understand the GPL precisely because we have to be conscious of the license we work with, the rights and duties that license give us.
Completely agree too, they should ask for the written offer to the person that gave them the binaries (In fact they shouldn’t ask, it must be included by default), and if that person does not have the written offer that person must have the sources and must be included by default with the binary.
In the case they contact the original author and the original author says that the binary had the sources, then they know they have to request the source to the person who gave them the binaries.
Exactly, GPL it’s far away from a model that so much people suggest here and there.
So as @SavMartin pointed out, definitely:
You are developing inside a GPL (and FREE) software you did not made and you are basicaly benefiting from it, at the expense of the work of other devs - that as you - develop under GPL with same duties and same rights. (Not minimizing the work of an addon developer because I know well the time and human effort that is needed for a project to become a reality, but making it clear that it is not only what you have done but what others have done so that what you make it possible).
So as you can benefit from Blender source and you create code/tools from it, it’s a win-win for everyone, mutual benefit. I believe GPL is made for that, to contribute, to share knowledge, to gather people around a same idea or project to work on it. Not to create conflicts, create restrictions or create competition… That does not mean you can’t sell it or have a platform to support the project as Blender has so people that use it can show it’s support for the project, that is the beautiful thing about GPL.
Now mentioning FSF answers, they say it clear:
I think there is a root problem for new devs to know well what means developing under GPL. Also because licenses are usually long, boring, so much cases, difficult to understand some terms in the way they are explained… so even if there is no bad intention, you probable will miss some things and you would probably be violating the license without knowing it out of sheer ignorance. So this FSF answers are definitely useful to clarify some doubts, thanks @JuanGea !
@dfelinto @Ton @brecht do you think may be a good idea to have these situations and the clarification of some of the GPL situations in the wiki and/or the website for new developers?
Like the duty of providing the source code or the written offer together with the binary, for example, this could help people to have a much clearer idea of the GPL, and why, for example, any Blender addon is automatically GPL, even if the developer decides to license it as MIT or Apache or closed source.
Im not a lawyer of course, but I’ve been trying to look into the licenses and their mutual compatiblity.
Blender uses a GPL license , guess the latest hence v3
Cycles on the hand is released under Apache License , 2.0
Apache also provides a link to disambiguate the linking between the two .
Apache 2 software can therefore be included in GPLv3 projects, because the GPLv3 license accepts our software into GPLv3 works. However, GPLv3 software cannot be included in Apache projects.
[…] We avoid GPLv3 software because merely linking to it is considered by the GPLv3 authors to create a derivative work.
For what I understand , Blender can link Cycles and its derivates (E-Cycle) without forcing it to change the license (Apache-> GPL) hence the blender code , being GPL has to be redistributed, where Cycles (end E-Cycles) will retain the Apache license and therefore not obliged to release the sources to the users.
Thoughts ?
Cheers.
L.
It’s always tricky to post advice on licenses, because it’s hard to be precise and trying to interpret it for other developers can create more confusion. Much of what has been discussed here I find quite clearly explained in section 6. Conveying Non-Source Forms of GPL v3, and if you’re making a Blender fork I would advise carefully reading that.
Yes I agree on that. Even this short sentence for example is false.
Yep, that’s why I don’t mention other things, but the duty of including the soource with the binary or at least the written offer, that’s something quite clear and explicitly defined by the FSF, they also explicitly says that if that condition is not met the software would be on violation of the GPL.
So maybe just that part could already be helpful, other details could be left to questioning to the FSF or reading the license it self.
No is not, any Blender addon that makes usage of the Blender Python API is automatically GPL, and if you have an interface inside Blender you are using the Blender API.
We could argue that some files may not be GPL, but then they must be a compatible license with GPL and if they connect directly with the GPL file then they are automatically affected by the same rules of the GPL.
No you are wrong . If the api usage is sort eg restricted to simple I/O and the rest of the addon not relying in any way on blender it is simply not the case.
In that case you may license the rest of the addon with a compatible open source license, but those files would be automatically affected by the GPL rules, it’s what makes the GPL a viruse license, as had been explained here.
There is even a case where you can mix a closed source part of the addon with an open source part IF you comply with certain details, but I think that’s a debate for another thread 
Yes, you can combine it, but as soon as those files are in intimate communication or works in conjunction with a GPL file, they are under the same GPL rules, again, it’s one of the main characteristics for the GPL.
And in any case those compatible licenses must be also open source.
No I am pretty sure this is also wrong, you may in any case combine the gpl with compatible licenses.
There are compatible licenses, they are all open source, the are treated like they would be gpl in these cases. But this is NOT the case I described before.
Here you have, from the Blender license page:
Sharing or selling Blender add-ons (Python scripts)
Blender’s Python API is an integral part of the software, used to define the user interface or develop tools for example. The GNU GPL license therefore requires that such scripts (if published) are being shared under a GPL compatible license. You are free to sell such scripts, but the sales then is restricted to the download service itself. Your customers will receive the script under the same license (GPL), with the same free conditions as everyone has for Blender.
And here you have the license compatibility map with the GPL: