On Apr 27, 2:15 pm, Mike Hansen <mhan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 2:02 PM, mabshoff <mabsh...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > I have been looking athttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html, but
> > there are various questions and answers about "additional
> > permissions" , but nothing in the direction of "additional
> > restrictions" that seem to match. From an amateur standpoint this
> > export restriction seems like an additional restriction that would
> > make the code GPL incompatible. Maybe someone ought to contact FSF's
> > licensing people?
>
> From the thread that Tim posted
> (http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-le...@lists.debian.org/msg16593.html):
>
> "Dave Turner, the FSF's ``GPL Compliance Engineer'' suggests including
> the DOE text in the SAME FILE as the GPL will be sufficient to honour
> the DOE's requirement while also not modifying the GPL. The text should
> note that it is not part of the licence."
Well: Section 8 of the GPL V2 says:
[quote]
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
[end quote]
I cannot see how the export restriction can be reconciled with the
above language. In the thread that Tim quoted the first email (which
was not from the FSF) wrote:
[quote]
With a very liberal interpretation of Section 8 of the GPL this could
be
read as an explicit geographical distribution limitation as if written
in
the body of the licence. A significant issue is that the limitation is
not
the result of restriction by patents or by copyrighted interfaces.
[end quote]
Since the FSF and Debian legal is happy with the language that was
added and we are not linking against the code, but merely calling it
via pseudo tty I consider the matter of potential GPL violation via
Sage closed. I still think the modification to COPYING in Maxima
violates the spirit of the GPL, but I guess without that restriction
there wouldn't be a GPLed Maxima to begin with.
But there is certainly still the issue with distribution, i.e. the
trade press covered the [planned?] deployment of Debian by the
government of Cuba a couple weeks ago. I wonder who gets into trouble
for "exporting" Debian in that context - even though there is only a
minuscule chance that anyone will bring legal actions. Judging the
past actions of the US government in the context of PGP and Philip R.
Zimmermann one ought to be a little paranoid about that.
> --Mike
Cheers,
Michael
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