On Fri Dec 11 22:42, Andrew Dalke wrote: > There seems to be a licensing problem with some of the chemistry software > packages, at least one of which is included in Debian. I'm working with a few > of the package developers to see if there really is a problem. We need some > better advice than I can find. > > Short version: > - Can an LGPL 2.1 JAR library include an Artistic License library and > still be distributed under the LGPL 2.1? > > - What about an LGPL 2.1 JAR library including a package under the Artistic > License 2.0 license? Or would the entire package need to be > moved to the GPL as a relicensing which is compatible with both > underlying licenses?
I believe that neither of these licences specify the licence of the code they are linked with, so this will be alright. The resulting licence of the package will be _both_, applying to different parts, AIUI. > - One of the XML schema files is released (most likely) under the > Creative Commons - No Derivation license. This is used by the > Artistic License package in order to do schema validation. Can > the LGPL 2.1 library include functionality which requires > this unalterable schema definition? Well, the biggest problem is that the CC-ND licence is not DFSG free, so inclusion of this at all would require putting the package in non-free. > I'm going to simplify the story a bit and give a minimal example. CDK > is the "Chemistry Development Kit", available in Debian as > > http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/cdk.html > > It is distributed under the LGPL 2.1. It is one of a number of LGPL'ed > chemistry tools which use the JUMBO and CML toolkits available from > > https://sourceforge.net/projects/cml/ > This software library and program are available under the "Artistic > License", which you can read in the Sourceforge details and in the > distributed pom.xml file. The distribution also includes the file > LICENSE.txt, saying: This doesn't sound like the two things being included in the same package? I'd expect it to depend on them at build and runtime. Matt > I have contacted one of the authors and gotten different responses. > Originally he said the package was "Artistic License 2.0" and then > said "the pom.xml file says it is 'Artistic License'", and in > discussions where I pointed out the existence of the LICENSE.txt file > he said that he wants those additional restrictions in place, so I am > going on the principle that the LICENSE.txt file is correct, and that > the license is "Artistic License" and not "Artistic License 2.0". > Notably, the license text is not included in the distribution. > > CDK is one of the downstream chemistry toolkits which make Java jar > distributions which use and repackage the jar file released by the > JUMBO/CML project. One of them also includes a patched JAR file. These > are not simple aggregates in a single jar file; the downstream > packages make use of functionality from the JUMBO/CML package. ugh, that's generally really bad form... > My understanding is that mixing the Artistic License and LGPL 2.1 is > not possible. I base this primarily on the FSF statement that they > consider the Artistic License to be incompatible with the GPL. I have > not found a statement about compatibility between the Artistic License > the LGPL. GPL is definitely != LGPL in this area, but I'd appreciate other comments on the issue > I tried to read and understand the Artistic License but I got > confused. The simplest conflict seems to be that the Artistic License > says "You may not charge a fee for this Package itself." where > ""Package" refers to the collection of files distributed by the > Copyright Holder, and derivatives of that collection of files created > through textual modification." This is in conflict with the LGPL 2.1 > clause "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a > copy". This may well be a problem for combining things into a single package, but I would not have thought it was an issue for things in different packages. > I have talked with one of the authors of JUMBO/CML and they may be > willing to relicense under the Artistic License 2.0. In doing the > research for that I read that the FSF considers the 2.0 license > compatible with the GPL because of the relicensing clause 4(c)(ii), > which allows the GPL. In this case the whole work would be distributed under the full GPL, not the LGPL > This is relevant because it would prevent CDK and other downstream > packages from including libraries which are compatible with the LGPL > but not compatible with the GPL. Or they would remove or reimplement > the JUMBO/CML component. correct. > If it is possible to relicense and be compatible with the LGPL 2.1, > the main CDK developer wants to know how to relicense the software. > Does he need to make a specific source release of JUMBO/CML under > the LGPL 2.1 then turn around and use it inside of his code? Or can > CDK include the JUMBO/CML code and just state somewhere inside the > CDK documentation "Originally under the Artistic License 2.0 and > relicensed under clause 4(c)(ii) to the LGPL 2.1"? A simple statement from the copyright holder(s) (all of them) should suffice. > Can an LGPL package include an XML schema definition which may not be > changed but which is required in order to use part of the LGPL API? regardless of this (and I think the schema can be data for these purposes, so yes), it can't go in Debian main. Matt -- Matthew Johnson
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