In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, MJ Ray
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
Wesley J. Landaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Saturday 12 May 2007 16:01:25 Francesco Poli wrote:
> You may not impose any further restrictions with respect to the *rights
> granted by the GPL*. But there are already such restrictions, and you
> cannot remove them because you are not the copyright holder.
> Hence you cannot comply with the license and the work is
> undistributable.
A licensee can't, but the copyright holder can. Their license is NOT the
GPL, but GPL + exceptions & restrictions. That is perfectly valid, just not
GPL compatible. The exception they have adds extra freedom, and I believe
the one restriction they add is DFSG-free. [...]
First, I think b is not an exception but a restriction.
Adding any restrictions to plain GPL results in an invalid licence as in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/05/msg00303.html
I think you're wrong here ... (certainly if the entire grant is by a
single entity)
That isn't much different to using the plain GPL with an OpenSSL-like
licence - both licences are DFSG-free, but we can't satisy both of them
simultaneously without additional permission on the GPL side. Of course
a copyright holder of the entire work could still copy and distribute
and so on because they don't need a licence but we can't because we
can't satisfy both of those restrictions simultaneously.
The copyright holder could make a new licence out of the GPL, as
permitted by the FSF, but they have not done so. I think they should
use the plain GPL, because I dislike licence proliferation.
As, presumably, they do. Hence "GPL plus restrictions".
I'm surprised that Red Hat have produced an inconsistent licence and I'm
surprised that GPL+restrictions isn't widely-known as non-free.
Hope that explains,
Thing is, the licence, as granted by the !copyright holder! is not
"GPL", but "GPL plus restrictions". The result can't be invalid, because
it is granted by the copyright holder, and is clear as to what is
granted.
A "GPL plus restrictions" is only invalid when the GPL is granted by one
entity, and the restrictions imposed by a different one. I can't licence
my code as "plus restrictions" and mix it with "pure GPL" code by
someone else.
Cheers,
Wol
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Anthony W. Youngman - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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