Sad Tale of Greed and Aspiration.

OPEN SOURCE..=...SOURCE CODE is freely available to modify and mess
with any way you want, just don't sell the
resulting product.

Purpose: So that people can modify and redistribute their own version
of the code as long as they are not profiting.

Result: The source have been copied, modified and is not being
sold.....so what is the problem?


This is missing the point entirely and is precisely the one
restriction that is *not* limited by the GPL. Understand that there
are many licenses that are considered "open source", so your statement
may be correct for some released under some open source licenses,
however, it is very incorrect for code released under the GPL.

In the case of XCSoar, the original developers have released their
code under the GPL. By placing the code under the GPL, the developers
are allowing anyone to use and distribute that code, as long as anyone
who modifies or uses the code in a derivative work also releases and
distributes that new code under the GPL. The version of the GPL under
which all derivative works should be the same version as the original
work, so XCSoar was released under GPL v2, then all derivative works
should also be released under GPL v2. To change the version would
require all original code developers to change the license under which
they released their original code.

Profiting from or selling that derivative work has nothing to do with
it. Linux is a perfect example of code released under the GPL that
was modified by commercial companies and sold. The only restriction
is that those companies have to release their modifications and
additions to any code released under the GPL back to the public such
that the community may benefit from their work just as the company
benefited from the original work. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the
community based CentOS are just one such example..

If the developer of LK8000 is using code from XCSoar and had made
modifications to it that have then been released to the public, he is
in violation of the GPL if he is not also making his modifications/
additions to that original code also available to the public. Its
really as simple as that. If he refuses to make those modifications
to the code available, he has no right to use any of the original
XCSoar code, no matter how much of it has been replaced or modified,
period.


Jason Kramb