I'm trying really hard to refrain from replying to this thread, but I think there are a couple of points of fact to be made.
Michael Harris wrote: > > GPLv2 stuff isn't ASL compatible, right ? So I can't just take a GPLv2 > theme, port it, and put it in -extras. If GPLv3 is ASL compatible, I > can change the theme and re-license it using GPLv3, then put it in > -extras. From what I'm reading, it's possible to take a GPL v2 product and release it under a v3 license. This means that you could take any theme, port it, and release it under GPL v3. Unfortunately, this would do nothing for you. While ASL is compatible with GPL v3, the reverse is not true. Consider: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/compat.html "A license p is compatible with a license q (or is q-compatible) if: A work licensed under p can be distributed under the terms of q." A work licensed under ASL can easily be distributed under the terms of GPL v3, because the ASL is less restrictive. See GPLv3 section 5c: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html No similar clause exists in the ASL 2.0. Please review this diagram: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/floss-license-slide.html "In this figure, the shaded boxes are the names of different FLOSS licenses. An arrow from box A to box B means that you can combine software with these licenses; the combined result effectively has the license of B, possibly with additions from A." So in converse, GPL is not compatible with ASL at all. You could not distribute GPL code under the terms of ASL, because the ASL does not require that derivative works be licensed as anything in specific. In terms of how this affects Habari, as the baseball metaphor I mentioned on the wiki page, consider the extras repo a farm team for the core software offering. There is no occasion whatsoever when GPL-licensed code would be brought into the majors. So while it's true that the ASL is GPL-compatible, the restriction for the repo is that contributions be ASL-compatible. Since no GPL contributions would be ASL-compatible, it's fairly clear that they are restricted from submission. Also, I would remind participants in this thread that the purpose of the extras repo is not to house every plugin or to have a central location where plugins are hosted. The extras repo serves two purposes only: 1) Serve as a place to develop plugins and themes with public participation to sound out whether either a contribution or a developer is worthy of promotion to core or PMC, respectively. 2) Allow developers interested in contributing to Habari to house their code and issue tracking at no cost to them. There will always be people who do not use the extras repo. Even I have plugins that are not in the extras repo for one reason or another. For these people, a central distribution system is paramount, not a central code repository. We have always had other plans for that, and no intent to exclude any contribution from this distribution directory based on license. I think it does come down to a question of promoting our project's ideals. That we draw a line is an important component in Habari's reason for being. I do not believe it's worthwhile to devote our resources to hosting code that is essentially contrary to our project's ideals. Even if GPL was somehow ASL-compatible, I believe it's perfectly acceptable to say that we don't want it here based on what properties it conveys, specifically in that it removes rights from the people whose effort built the software. Those are not the principles upon which this project was built. Owen --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
