On Sunday, 3 September 2017 at 16:51:53 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
On Sunday, 3 September 2017 at 16:10:11 UTC, Gary Willoughby
wrote:
Hi,
A few years ago I forked the Deimos X11 bindings[1] repo to
add dub support. Since then my repo[2] has received bug fixes
and as such it's being used in many projects. (Also, in the
following years dub support was added to the Deimos repo too.)
I had a question from a developer as to the license of the
code in my repo. I used the LGPL because the original used it.
My question, is there a legal way to change the current
license to Boost or MIT or something like? Because this
particular developer wanted to use it in a project where LGPL
was incompatible.
[1]: https://github.com/D-Programming-Deimos/libX11
[2]: https://github.com/nomad-software/x11
When I first created the DerelictSDL bindings, the SDL library
was LGPL (though it's since switched to MIT). I contacted Sam
Lantinga (the creator of SDL) to get his take on it. He told me
that his understanding was that an API binding is not a
derivative work and therefore can have a separate license. I
got the same answer from others. None of these folks were, or
are, lawyers, but they all work for companies that have to be
aware of such issues. So I felt as safe as I could be sans
legal advice in licensing all of the Derelict packages under
Boost.
That said, I don't know if the Oracle v. Google case and its
precedent that APIs are copyrightable impact this common
understanding. After all, it was commonly understood prior to
that case that that copyright applies to implementations, not
interfaces. Now that the court has established the opposite,
does the same hold true for licensing? I don't know of any
legal cases that have decided either way.
It looks like we need to get permission from 17 developers - all
x11 binding contributors.
Contributors to DUB package nomad-software/x11
nomad-software
weltensturm
Geod24
MartinNowak
BBasile
rikkimax
Additionally, contributors to Deimos/libX11
growlercab
bioinfornatics
skilion
CyberShadow
Faianca
Flamaros
PhilipWitte
edmccard
arukuka
IanWizard
WalterBright
