wxPython Licence vs GPL

[bonono at gmail.com]

Mike Meyer wrote:
> "bonono at gmail.com" <bonono at gmail.com> writes:
> > Steve Holden wrote:
> >> Whether or not some fragments of code remain unchanged at the end of
> >> your project, if you start out with a piece of source code lifted from
> >> wxPython then what you have created is definitely a "derivative work"
> >> and, as such, you must take into account the wxPython license in your
> >> licensing of the derivative work.
> > Is that true ? What if I remove/replace the copyright doubtful portion
> > with another implementation ? I believe this happens all the time in
> > commerical software sue too.
>
> In general, if you can show you removed all the licensed code that was
> in your code, and replaced it with software from another source,
> you're cool. That's how the BSD distributions came about - Berkeley's
> Computer Systems Research Group rewrote pretty much all of Unix.
>
> However, you're still liable to be sued. CSRG was, which is part of
> why BSD languished while Linux was taking off. It's also why the
> previous paragraph is a gross oversimplification. The court case
> didn't establish a real precedent, as it turned out AT&T was
> distributing code that belonged to CSRG in violation of the BSD
> license. So they reached a settlement in which CSRG was allowed to
> distribute a tape that had most of a Unix sytem on it, a few key files
> that AT&T claimed as their own being withheld.  This is the "BSD Lite"
> distribution that the *BSD systems and parts of OS X are based on. All
> this backstory made the SCO barratry much more entertaining.
>
Thanks, I was just trying to clarify it. As my initially understanding
of Steve's post is that your work would be perpetual derivative work
which doesn't sound too convincing for me.

As for the liability, that is for sure, withness what is happening for
the linux kernel.