On 08/03/2009 09:58 AM, Greg Hellings wrote:
I was on this page - http://crosswire.org/wiki/Frontends:FeatureList -
earlier today and noticed the following line:
All frontends MUST be GPLv2 licensed. (This should be obvious. The
SWORD Project is GPLv2-licensed. All derivative works, such as
frontends and utilities, must be GPLv2 or they would be in violation
of CrossWire's copyright and the copyrights of 3rd parties whose code
has been incorporated into SWORD, e.g. the FSF.)
However, that is directly in contradiction to the words of the Free
Software Foundation's FAQ lines about this exact situation:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL
If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean
that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL or a
GPL-compatible license?
Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library.
This explicitly allows for distribution of other works under
compatible licenses, not only under the GPL.
This is only part of the story. The GPL is viral and anything built from
GPL libraries also has to be GPL. As I understand it, this clause allows
for dual licensing with another compatible license. It does not remove
the viral nature of the GPL.
There is another entry in the same FAQ that says that when combining GPL
code with other non-GPL, but compatible license code, the resultant code
is GPL.
See: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean
What does it mean to say a license is “compatible with the GPL?”
It means that the other license and the GNU GPL are compatible; you can
combine code released under the other license with code released under
the GNU GPL in one larger program.
All GNU GPL versions permit such combinations privately; they also
permit distribution of such combinations provided the combination is
released under the same GNU GPL version. The other license is compatible
with the GPL if it permits this too.
GPLv3 is compatible with more licenses than GPLv2: it allows you to make
combinations with code that has specific kinds of additional
requirements that are not in GPLv3 itself. Section 7 has more
information about this, including the list of additional requirements
that are permitted.
This is not restricted
by SWORD being only v2, the statement applies to all GPL versions, as
others have verified directly with the FSF. This particular FAQ was
updated because it had been causing issues with people misinterpreting
it to mean that only the GPL could be used for derivative works, as
our Wiki has been misled to state. This line on our Wiki should
either be updated, or just use a reference directly to the GNU/FSF FAQ
page.
I guess we could update it to say that it can be dually licensed with a
compatible license provided that one is GPLv2. But I don't think that is
all that important. I find that most people that bring up this question
aren't looking for that as an option, but rather for a way to not
license it as GPLv2.
In Him,
DM Smith
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