Re: GNU Chess redistribution licensing

[Alex Ignácio da Silva]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the quick response.

OK, I'll just go ahead and try to integrate my GUI application with GNU
Chess. In fact, it is open source too: it is distributed under GPLv3 but
with a FLOSS additional permission clause that allows combining it with
selected open source licenses which unfortunately aren't compatible with
the GPL:

http://www.haundrix.com/download/license.html

And by the way, I picked GNU Chess exactly because it's open source!

I'll post here in case I encounter difficulties talking to GNU Chess.

Cheers,

Alex

Simon Waters wrote:
> Alex Ignácio da Silva wrote:
>> To the GNU Chess development team,
>>
>> I would like to know whether it's allowed to redistribute GNU Chess
>> along with a third party GUI application to play chess. Since the GNU
>> Chess engine would be started as a separate process and communication
>> handled through standard input/output pipes, I believe it could be
>> considered a separate work independent of the GUI application, as
>> suggested by the FSF:
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation
>>
>> and hence the GPL would not be applied to the GUI interface application.
> 
> Your understanding appears correct to me.
> 
> GNU Chess invoked as a separate process via the Winboard interface is
> mere aggregation, and doesn't affect the licensing of other code
> distributed with it in this fashion.
> 
> My understanding is that such distribution, from a licensing perspective
> is the same as distribution GNU Chess itself.
> 
> As you'll be distributing GNU Chess, you will incur obligations under
> the GNU GPLv2, to notify them of their rights to GNU Chess, and to give
> them a copy of the source code for GNU Chess (plus any modifications you
> make to GNU Chess) on request. But this doesn't affect any other
> applications you distribute alongside.
> 
> You are encouraged to distribute your GUI under a free software license,
> but there is no obligation.
> 
> 
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