Re: lynx-dev Free Distribution Of " Lynx 2.8 "For the CHIP CD September 1998

[David Woolley]

> Lynx is distributed subject to a GNU licence,
> which roughly allows free use & copying,
> provided it is never used in any kind of commercial or copyright software.

All Gnu software is copyrighted, it can ONLY be used in copyright software.

The restrictions on commercial software are more complex.  Lynx (etc.) can
be included in their entirety in a commercial product, provided it is made
clear that redistribution of the Lynx (Gnu) component is permitted and
no royalty is demanded for such redistribution, and the source is
made available.  Parts of the Lynx source code can be merged into other
source code, but the whole of any executable or dynamic library so
produced is covered by the Gnu licence and the Gnu redistribution and
source availability rules apply.  The same applies if a some of the
source files are used intact.  Unlike the Mozilla licence, you are not
required to actively publish a derived work to the free software community,
only to tell the recipients that they may redistribute free.

> for full details of the licence, see the file  COPYING  in the package,
> which you can obtain from  www.slcc.edu/lynx/release/ .
> the copyright is held by the University of Kansas (USA),
> which would be responsible for any legal action against infringement.

The copyright used to be held by them.  I think it is now held by a large
number of contributors, as I never remember seeing any copyright releases
from people like Fote - this is one of the reasons why it would be difficult
to issue it under any other type of licence.
> 
> perhaps there could be some question raised
> if it appeared your company was profiting from adding Lynx to its CD,

It would be completely legal; he can have a completely clear conscience.
Charging for supply has always been legal and this would be covered by
the narrow sense of the "mere aggregation" exclusion, although correspondence
with RMS indicates that inclusion as an integral part of a commercial product
is also covered, provided the Gnu licensed component is separable at the
binary level, and the above conditions are met for that component.