On Sat, Jun 04, 2005 at 07:23:30PM +0200, Thomas Zander wrote: > On Saturday 4 June 2005 18:28, David Roundy wrote: > > On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 10:47:18AM -0300, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > 3. Add the following text to the license: > > > > > > "As a special exception, you have permission to link this program with > > > code which is licensed under the Common Public Licence or the Eclipse > > > Public Licence, as long as you follow the requirements of the GNU GPL > > > in regard to all of the software in the executable aside from the > > > software which is licensed under the Common Public License or the > > > Eclipse Public License." > > > > > > This would allow the redistribution of works which combined darcs and > > > CPL'ed code, but it would not allow the redistribution of works which > > > combined darcs and proprietary code. > > > > This option seems best to me (assuming we go with any change at all). > > This reaction disappoints me. Taking zooko's word on how this change behaves > while various people have proven again and again that his understanding of > the GPL is severely limited is not only short sighted, its dangerous for > Darcs.
It's easier to remove a special exception than to add one, and do note my parenthetical remark. I'm not determined on making a change, I just stated that the special exception track seems to be the best route for compatibility with CPL, and it doesn't seem like it would remove the copyleft, since CPL code itself is copylefted (albeit in an LGPL-style manner) and we aren't allowing linking with any code that is not either under the CPL or GPL. > > I'm thinking that perhaps the best option would be to ask authors to > > assign copyright to me. I didn't want to do this, but it would > > definitely simplify future changes of license. > > Why would authors want to give you copyright if the sole reason for doing so > is to ease license change? Right, that would be the point. > This means you can make it non free as soon as you get a good enough offer > from. No disrespect at all, David; you did a great job, but the GPL works > because the software is nobodies property, there are only downsides to > changing that. The reason authors would assign copyright would be because they trust me. If they don't trust me, they won't assign copyright. That trust would presumably be based on their knowledge of me from on-list interactions, and my behavior in the past. I don't imagine that all the darcs contributors would assign copyright, but if all the very *minor* contributors did so, it would mean that we could add special exceptions as needed without contacting fifty people. Another example of a possible license change would be if we were to add a special exception to allow linking with openssl. I'm not sure whether that's possible (as it may be that the openssl license itself is incompatible with GPL even with such an exception), but if it were, I'd wholeheartedly endorse that approach. It's silly that we can't distribute darcs binaries with ssl support, because openssl is not GPL-compatible. -- David Roundy http://www.darcs.net
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