On 12/10/2015 11:29 am, Drew Parsons wrote: > Hi Jonathan, I think some of the frustration you're experiencing might > come from different degrees of thought about how important the specific > issue is. You're reading the licence mismatch as a black&white > violation. But in this specific r-cran situation, to use an argument > ad reductio, or ad absurdio, by taking the version numbers out of the > argument, the question is whether GPL licenced software is allowed to > link against GPL-licenced software. > > When you read it that way, it might make it easier to understand why > people aren't so worried about the violation. The violation is in the > technicalities of the GPL versions. That does matter in a legal sense. > But for the non-legal majority it's a bit of a "whatEver". The > difference in attitude come from whether a person thinks the spirit or > the letter of the licence is more important. > > Place these differences of attitude in a science context and as a > generalisation you'll find science-oriented people are more likely to > be pragmatic, i.e. not worried about licence technicalities. They just > want the code to work. > > Historically this sort of thing can happen if the author just uses the > latest version of the GPL available at the time, and doesn't bother to > follow later changes in the GPL (but doesn't object to them either). So > it could well be that in the author's mind there is no violation. This > is partly why authors are encouraged to include the clause "or later > version", to avoid the ambiguity. > > There are other contexts where the violation is certainly clear cut. > Finding GPL code in Microsoft Windows, you'd get more discussion on > that. Likewise finding unlicenced (unauthorised, stolen) proprietary > code in Debian, say the code for Oracle's database, would be swiftly > removed. Finding a case where a GPL-2 author explicitly has a > conscious conscientious objection to GPL-3 would be more black&white. > > In this r-cran example though, it sounds more like the author simply > never got round to updating the licence, or didn't see it important > enough to worry about. Asking the author to worry about it could be a > simple way of fixing the problem.
yup. i've been talking with upstream, he's not completely convinced. i think if i can get debian to weigh in on it, then that would clinch it. > But you did the right thing to ask the question, and debian-legal is > the right place to ask such questions. That's just a discussion forum > though. More legally binding advice could be found from places like > SPI http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/services/ > > > Drew > > p.s. I'm not meaning to make a specific judgement on this r-cran case > except to say "you're probably right". I'm just addressing the general > question of why it wouldn't seem to be so important to some people. cheers, appreciate it. jonathon -- JASP - A Fresh Way to Do Statistics http://jasp-stats.org/ -- How happy is he born and taught, That serveth not another's will; Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise, or fear to fall: Lord of himself, though not of lands, And, having nothing, yet hath all. -- Sir Henry Wotton
