On 09/13/12 11:40 PM, Jim Jagielski wrote:
On Sep 13, 2012, at 8:43 AM, Jim Jagielski<j...@jagunet.com> wrote:
Is this all about your point of view that even though Apache stdcxx
is designed as a library, esp as a system library, that GPLv2 programs
cannot use and link to it because the FSF says that the ALv2
is incompatible w/ GPLv2? And all this despite the fact that
GPLv2 makes specific accommodations for system libraries...
Is that the actionable item of which you speak? You want the
ASF to "verify" something in the GPLv2?
FWIW (for completeness) let me state that *every* lawyer I've
spoken to says that since stdcxx is designed *AS* a system
library, and as a *standard* system library, the whole "GPLv2
and ALv2 licenses are incompatible" argument is completely moot.
The idea that one could not, for example, replace the current stdcxx
library in FreeBSD with Apache stdcxx *because of the GPLv2 and ALv2
license "incompatibility"* is completely bogus. Since this basic
argument is baseless, the idea that somehow stdcxx needs to be
licensed under something else *because of this* is also bogus.
PS: Even if the stdcxx library was under a commercial license, and/or
completely proprietary, since it would be a standard, system
library, GPLv2 applications would *still* be able to link
to it... The GPL does NOT force system libs to even be
open source.
We appreciate you telling the choir, but it doesn't help resolve this.
How to best proceed? Is legal-discuss the best way to go forward or
something else?
[System lib exception was of course brought up during the BSD
discussion, but it was said that system libraries are usually shipped by
default with the system. This may not always be the case with STDCXX.]
