On Mon, Mar 25, 2002 at 05:31:01PM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote: > Although I can see that this conclusion appears reasonable (at least > superficially), I'm not convinced that "trivially convertible" is > sufficient to satisfy the GPL,
Then you probably should talk to the FSF about this. It's a fairly subtle and confusing issue. > If you distribute under the LGPL to > comply with the copyrights of other non-GPL code in the archive, you are > therefore not distributing it under the GPL, It doesn't work quite that way. You're not required to "distribute it under the GPL", you're required to be able to distribute it under the *terms* of the GPL. If I happen to give you a piece of BSD licensed code, maintaining the copyright notices, including source, and including any interactive notices of the licensing, then what I'm doing is obeying the BSD license, and being a little generous; but in so doing I also happen to be obeying the terms that would be required if the code were GPLed. Just because I happen to obey those terms doesn't mean they actually exist, or are required. The viral nature of the GPL simply requires the actual license of my code to allow me to act in the same way I would if it were GPLed. It doesn't require the code to actually be GPLed. You're not relicensing the software, you're not converting the license to the GPL. > Although I don't think it is the /intent/ of the GPL to prohibit what > we're doing, I'm also not entirely comfortable with the uncertainty of > whether an entity with a minor copyright stake in a GPLed work we > distribute, plus a lot of lawyers, could sue SPI for this and win. Then you should talk to the FSF, as the authors and current experts on the implications of the GPL. Seriously. It's unfortunate that there isn't a "GPL Subtleties" FAQ somewhere that discusses these things properly. Probably it'd also have to discuss flaws in the GPL that could allow proprietry vendors to abuse GPLed code, which the FSF doesn't like people doing. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``Debian: giving you the power to shoot yourself in each toe individually.'' -- with kudos to Greg Lehey
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