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From: Kevin B.Hendricks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Aaron Lehmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Kevin Atkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Copyright of Modified Ispell Code
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 00:17:02 -0400
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Hi,
> It seems pretty clear to me. The files in src/other/spell/xp/ have the
> "original Ispell license".
Those files have been modified from the original ispell release by your
developers and the file newMain.c has been added and does not have any
license info in it at all.
So I guess the question becomes, are all of those modifications to ispell
GPL, LGPL, or something else.
> Understood WRT Mozilla, but isn't OpenOffice under the GPL?
We (OpenOffice) are dual licensed, one of which is the LGPL. OpenOffice is
not licensed under the normal full GPL.
> The problem with this that the original Ispell license (classic BSD)
> is *NOT* compatible with the GPL. It has an advertising clause, even
> in the version included with AbiWord:
>
> * 4. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this *
> software * must display the following acknowledgment:
> * This product includes software developed by Geoff Kuenning and
> * other unpaid contributors.
Hmm, that is a problem for GPL? Are you sure? What about LGPL? Does anyone
know?
> > So what will it be. I really hope that you are willing to release it
> > under a license which will allow other programs such as OpenOffice and
> > Mozilla to use it.
>
> It isn't our choice. It's actually illegal to distribute a build of
> AbiWord that contains ispell since the licenses are not compatible.
> And needless to say, we can't just change the license of ispell unless
> we include the same GPL-incompatible advertising clause in the new
> license!
Are you sure about the advertising clause? Lots of BSD code with similar
clauses are integrated into many projects.
> As for pspell, if it dlopen()'s the ispell module, the legality is
> questionable but quite possibly okay.
Good point.
> ( Of course, we could try to convince the copyright holders of ispell
> to change the license. I count over 250 contributors to ispell, and
> some of them are bound to disagree. Plus, their email addresses aren't
> included. Forget it. )
Since the only person mentioned in the advertising clause is Geoff, perhaps
we can get him to wave the use of his name for non-profit projects like ours.
I don't think anyone would have a problem with saying just:
� "�This product includes software developed by unpaid contributors"
which is certainly true of all of our projects! ;-)
It might be worth a try. If that works and is compatible with LGPL and your
changes to ispell are LGPL'd or BSD'd then Kevin Atkinson could make an
ispell module for both of us to use (with your changes to ispell) and the
whole thing could be LGPL'd which should be perfectly legal for you to link
too.
Is it worth a try?
Take care,
Kevin H.
Volunteer for OpenOffice.org
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