Forgive me please. GPL's etc are not my strongest point. But could you please enlighten me.
This is what I found:
From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html (about free software)- Code: Select all
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what
you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).
By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your
changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
From http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb847944 (Sysinternals)- Code: Select all
Q: May I distribute Sysinternals utilities in my software, on my website,
or with my magazine?
A: No. We are not offering any distribution licenses, even if the 3rd party is
distributing them for free. We encourage people to download the utilities from
our download center where they can be assured to get the most recent version
of the utility.
Q: Can I license or re-use any Sysinternals source code?
A: No. We will no longer offer the Sysinternals source code for download or license.
- WsusOffline is build with and collects numerous apps from Microsoft. And in the second fase
of the process executes these collected, and packaged together with self written, apps. Some
of these apps are even signed and copyrighted by Microsofts Mark Russinovich. One could say
Microsoft is not known for bringing out a lot of GPL software these days. As far as I know.
- Wsusoffline is also aimed at users who themselves not always tend to go the straight way. For
instance some very not GPL aimed updates of mister Microsoft are blacklisted from being
collected.
- Where on earth is GPL comming into this equation. I really really do not understand. Please help
me out.
As a suggestion to the builders. If copyright and licenses are of really concern to you (i would think
twice), do not enclose utilities owned by Microsoft in your distribution of WsusOffline. What you
could do is download them at execution time (with a GPL-ed
tool of course). As such the
wonderful free but not GPL-ed tools of the world come into grasp with less risk of being nicked.
And if you ever think of making WsusOffline UNC compliant you could do the same with TCC. But
if I am guessing right, the owner of TCC/LE might be less obstructive as mister Microsoft.
And as a last remark. I saw a thread with a very lively discussion on how to use network shares
in WsusOffline. WSUSUpdateAdmin is even involved. I think of contributing to that thread with
pointing out to a
free tool that might come in handy for that sake. But in the end I feel...., some
would say: "a little bit bullied around" by someone who was not even contributing to that thread
at all. What am I missing? Because in the future I would like to have my contributions taken
seriously or at least ignored. Else I plan not to make contributions at all. It is that simple.
With the utmost and highest Regards,
Eric-Jan,
The Netherlands.
Last edited by EricJanHteA on 09.04.2011, 14:26, edited 1 time in total.