Hi!
I noticed by coincidence that there is a "critical"
bug in the Debian package for LyX regarding the
copyright.
The bug is number 32299.
The question is whether the clarification of the
licensing question we have put on the web page is
a change to the license or an attempt at a
clarification. I can confirm that it is the
latter. We have not changed the license as such.
I have not followed the discussion on the debian
legal mailing list, so I'm not sure what the
problem is regarding distributing LyX with
Debian.
However, what I do know is that the LyX Team
has agreed that the current license by which
LyX is distributed (the GPL) is sufficient
in the sense that our interpretation of it is
not in conflict with the XForms license.
I'm not a legal expert, but my understanding is
that in the act of applying the license to LyX,
and thus linking with XForms, the offending parts
of the license are legally nullified, and this is
what we have stated in the clarification.
In other words: We are not ready to change the
license as such, because we feel it would make
things worse (invention yet another license), but
we are ready to clarify our interpretation of the
license.
This has been done in the cvs version of LyX,
and will be part of LyX v1.0.0, which is due
the 1st of February.
If you have any comments on this decision, please
reply to both me, and the lyx developers mailing
list which is cc'ed on this letter.
If the question is a matter of clarifying the
clarification, we are of course ready to do so,
as long as it is in line with our decision.
Greets,
Asger Alstrup
