Ben Reser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > There is a license conflict that technically prohibits the distribution > of your software. Most of your code contains a non-copyleft but > permissive license. However, modem_at.c carries a GPL license. > > This in itself is not a huge problem. Your license is substantially > similar to other licenses that the FSF says are GPL compatible (e.g. the > ZPL or the Cryptix General License). > > The inclusion of the GPL licensed file triggers the requirements of > section 2b of the GPL, which requires that the entire work be GPL'd.
This is not *quite* true. It requires that the combined work be distributed under the terms of the GPL, which introduces another option for them. > As I said before your license is compatible with the GPL so this on a > cursory review wouldn't be a problem. > > However, you do not include source for the dsplibs.o or the amrlibs.o > file. This conflicts with section 3 of the GPL that requires the source > code be made available. This part is accurate. > Solutions to the problem are as follows: > > 1) License all files under the GPL and include source for the two object > files. Simply providing the source for the two object files would be sufficient to comply with the GPL. That's what GPL-compatible means. This is the other option I mentioned: they need change no licenses, merely include the source code. > 2) Change the license on modem_at.c. How you do this depends upon to > what degree you own the copyright to this code. > > a) You have complete copyright to the code and remove the GPL license > replacing it with your existing license. Alternatively, you could > dual license (i.e. say you can use either your license or the GPL). > Both of these are essentially the same as your license is GPL > compatible anyway. No. One of these is a copyleft, the other is not. > b) You do not have complete copyright and adapted the code from a GPL > source. In which case you are violating that persons copyright as > you are not including any copyright indicating that. I suspect > due to the lack of the copyright notice for something like that > that this isn't the case. However, if it is you would need to > get the permission to relicense the code under your license or > rewrite the code from scratch. > > I believe this conflict is relatively easy to resolve. I anticipate you > can do 2a and continue on. > > I'm also CC'ing debian-legal on this as they distribute your code in the > sl-modem-daemon package. The package is currently in non-free. Doing 1 > would result in it being able to move to free (unless someone else sees > another problem). However, until 2 is done I'd suspect Debian is going > to have to remove the package. I'm not a Debian Developer (yet), but thanks for the heads-up. > Additionally, there are other files (kernel-ver.c, all the files in > patches and scripts) which do not contain any license at all. Appropriate > copyright notices should be added to them. The debian startup script > appears to have been contributed by a 3rd party so you'd need to contact > that individual to get the appropriate copyright notice. And the ALSA > patches would need to be GPL licensed in order to be applied and used. > It may be useful to include a COPYING file that applies your license to > any file that doesn't say otherwise within its contents. > > If you have any questions about this please let me know. I'll be more > than happy to spend some time with you explaining the problems and > working with you to reach a resolution to this licensing problem. > > -- > Ben Reser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > http://ben.reser.org > > "Conscience is the inner voice which warns us somebody may be looking." > - H.L. Mencken -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
