From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:34:52 -0500 Message-ID: References: <87d4399auk.fsf@red-bean.com> <87hbsl7wr0.fsf@vh213601.truman.edu> <878wdtvfba.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1259255808 28419 80.91.229.12 (26 Nov 2009 17:16:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:16:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: David Kastrup Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Nov 26 18:16:41 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NDhxN-0008OW-Mh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:16:38 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:60850 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NDhxN-0001mm-40 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:16:37 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NDhJ6-0005qN-8B for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:35:00 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NDhJ1-0005kn-9o for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:34:59 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=43410 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NDhJ1-0005kd-5G for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:34:55 -0500 Original-Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.183]:45626 helo=ironport2-out.pppoe.ca) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NDhIz-0006r3-6Z; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:34:53 -0500 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: At8EAFk8DktFpYc//2dsb2JhbACBTdNMhDEEgXKIJw X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.47,295,1257138000"; d="scan'208";a="50085900" Original-Received: from 69-165-135-63.dsl.teksavvy.com (HELO ceviche.home) ([69.165.135.63]) by ironport2-out.pppoe.ca with ESMTP; 26 Nov 2009 11:34:52 -0500 Original-Received: by ceviche.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 38735B40E6; Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:34:52 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <878wdtvfba.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> (David Kastrup's message of "Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:52:09 +0100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:117824 Archived-At: >>> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a >>> similar license. Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed >>> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3? >>> That would be a bad problem. Can someone tell me if there are any? >> There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a >> license would be illegal, AFAIK. > Not really. It would just be impractical since distributing this as > part of an Emacs 23 distribution would not be feasible. You can of > course offer any code you wrote yourself under any license you feel fit. This is a murky area, but the fact that the code can only run together with GPLv3 code might imply that it is illegal to distribute it under an incompatible license, even if it's distributed separately. The reason for it might be the same as the reason why it wouldn't be legal to distribute "forward only, ed-style patch" with an incompatible license, even though none of the GPLv3 code appears in the patch. IIRC this has never been tested in court, but convinced a company to write the fgmp library so as to be able to distribute a program that used libgmp but wasn't compatible with its license. Stefan