2009/12/12 Stephen Tetley <stephen.tet...@gmail.com>: > 2009/12/12 Tom Tobin <korp...@korpios.com>: > >> >> 1) Can the author of Y legally distribute the *source* of Y under a >> non-GPL license, such as the 3-clause BSD license or the MIT license? > > Hello Tom > > If the answer to this isn't yes, I'll buy a hat and eat it... > > As source, Y (the BSD3 library) can surely be distributed as the > author sees fit. The author could even distribute Y as source under a > non-GPL _compatible_ license. This would hamper the utility Y, neither > the author of Y nor anyone else could distribute an executable that > agglomerates X and Y, but I honestly can't see how the existence of > library X (GPL) can make it illegal to distribute other distinct works > (my emphasis on _distinct_). > > Now, author X could choose to sue author Y for copyright infringement. > If such a case happened it might set the precedent for what a 'derived > work' is - vis-a-vis GPL and libraries - from my cursory web > searching, such a case hasn't happened. From the 'Linking and derived > works' bit in the Wikipedia page, the judgement on copyright law notes > "the infringing work must incorporate a portion of the copyrighted > work in some form", surely the judges would have to decide whether or > not calling API's and reusing datatypes is incorporation. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License > > >> 3) If the answer to 1 is "yes", what specifically would trigger the >> redistribution of a work in this scenario under the GPL? Is it the >> distribution of X+Y *together* (whether in source or binary form)? > > Don't know. > > In the case of Hakyll and other packages on Hackage, the distribution > is in source form. If someone wanted to repackage the code from > Hackage as a binary distro they would have different obligations. > >> 4) If the answer to 1 is "yes", does this mean that a "BSD-licensed" >> library does not necessarily mean that closed-source software can be >> distributed which is based upon such a library (if it so happens that >> the library in turn depends on a copylefted library)? > > The 'closed-source' software here still depends on a 'copyleft' > library - if the library is GPL then the terms of the GPL apply. > Whether there is an intermediary BSD licensed library is surely > immaterial.
I'd like to point out a possible situation, that makes the questions even more interesting. Say the author of Y (the BSD licensed code) is used to install its code, Y, along of its requisite X (under GPL) to customer locations. Note that Y and X are not (re)distributed in compiled form. In fact, the client could have the internal resource to install and configure Y and its requisite himself (if Y was made available to him). Is it ok in regard of the GPL ? Cheers, Thu _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
