On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 07:57:49AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: > I meant that source code could only be distributed under that new > BSDL-like license. For the purposs of discussion lets call it > Anticopyleft license. You could distribute binaries under the > Anticopyleft license, the BSDL license or any other license you like, > but not the GPL because the GPL requires that source code is available > under the GPL when distributing binaries. This would enforce > non-copyleftability.
Well, duh. If the license specifically excludes the GPL then the GPL wouldn't be allowed. > A different BSDL-like license (lets call it Copyleft BSDL) that > requires modifications to be distributed under the Copyleft BSDL and > accompanying source code wouldn't, of course, allow its code to be > relicensed as GPL. But would it allow linking? This is not obviously > "no" for me because when you link BSDL code and GPL code you don't > have to distribute that BSDL code as GPL. The package as a whole is > GPL but not the BSDL parts. So what makes a license GPL-compatible? Is > the criterion being able to relicense it as GPL? This seems vague and pointless. There's no such license but depending on what a license would say it would or would not be legal. > If so, a GPL with an added clause saying it can be linked to Qt > may not be GPL compatible... And if that Qt-compatible GPL can > be relicensed as pure GPL, then ANY modification may strip that > Qt-compatibility clause. GPL with added Qt acceptability clause would be GPL compatible, but the GPL without that clause still couldn't be combined with Qt. This should be obvious. > Also you didn't say whether you would consider the Anticopyleft a free > license. Do you equate free with GPL-compatible? GPL-compatability is one flavor of free. There are literally dozens of other flavors of free. By the way a square is a kind of rectangle, but that doesn't mean that a rectangle is a kind of square. > > Note that the requirement isn't that modifications be distributed > > as patches -- patches are just an example of how to fullfill the > > requirement that modifications should be distributed in a separate > > form from the Software -- it might very well be that as long as > > you can demonstrate the ability to distribute both modified and > > unmodified versions of the QPLed software that you're satisfying > > this clause. > > That would make the modification a separatable form rather than > separate. Separate in potential only. No. They'd always be separate, they'd just not always be distributed. > Do you think a court would allow that? I imagine that would depend on other things (like how difficult it is getting at the separate versions). Do you think any of this discussion is at all suitable for debian-legal? If so, why? [There's no chance that debian will change the GPL. Debian has no legal right to do so.] -- Raul
