On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 01:42:06PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote: > > This political problem is my concern here. I understand that I CAN (if I > > wish) release the modified sources under the GPL. My specific question here > > is whether I HAVE TO release it under the GPL if I link with the GNU > > Readline library (which is GPL'ed). Noticed that the original upstream > > code (which is in "public domain") has nothing to do with the Readline > > library, only my modifications are related to it. > > I think you have to. By linking bibindex with readline, you are creating > "a work based on readline". According to the GPL under which readline > is distributed, you have to distribute all of the work under GPL. > > [ I think a well-known ftp client had to be relicensed to GPL because > of this reason (linking with readline), so there is a "precedent" ].
Thanks for your patience, Santiago, but I am really annoyed by this problem. Do I have really to relicense the whole even if the original code have had nothing to do in the past with my Readline additions? One could ponder that only _my_ part of the work is based on Readline. I will really appreciate if someone could confirm/second Santiago's point here: am I not allowed to just release _my_ modifications under the GPL, leaving the rest in the public domain? Could someone please point to me the relevant part of GPL that states that? > So I think you have two choices: > > a) Relicense the Debian package to GPL on your own. > This is legal, public domain may be relicensed to whatever you want. This will cause a political problem and I am not willing to do it. > b) Ask the maintainers to do so. They should not refuse if linking with > readline is in his TODO list for this package. No, in their TODO list there was only a mention to a history mechanism, not a explicit mention to the GNU redline library. BTW, in my patch that will be integrated to the next upstream release, there is a fallback to a rudimentary history control mechanism, implemented without Readline. Sorry, for all this discussion, but I prefer to clarify the issues here in debian-legal before approaching the upstream authors. -- Rafael Laboissiere <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
