Hello, 

Thanks for the clarification. This makes it pretty clear. 

Cheers,

Nicolas

On Dec 15, 2012, at 4:13 AM, Joshua Root <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 2012-12-15 05:29 , Nicolas Pavillon wrote:
>> Hello, 
>> 
>> I was just checking some licenses on some ports, and I realised the one of 
>> kdelibs4 is wrong at the present time. However, I am a bit confused about 
>> determining the proper license. For now, it is set to GPL-2+, which is the 
>> most restrictive of what is contained in the codes, but it should be "GPL-2+ 
>> LGPL-2+ BSD Permissive" to account for all licenses contained in the code. 
>> 
>> However, the GPL codes seem to be essentially testing codes, and may not be 
>> part of the used executables. Furthermore, kdelibs is commonly considered 
>> licensed under LGPL, as it is the one announced by KDE, and Fedora 
>> distributes packages for example. 
>> 
>> I am not fully sure of the criterion in a case like this in order to choose 
>> the license. Therefore, I am wondering if I should list everything (GPL-2+ 
>> LGPL-2+ BSD Permissive), or if I should limit to what is commonly considered 
>> (LGPL-2+ BSD Permissive), which would make the port distributable ?
> 
> The GPL is unusual in that it conflicts with anything that imposes
> requirements other than those imposed by the GPL itself. Thus GPL +
> anything GPL compatible = GPL.
> 
> Only the license(s) of installed files are relevant for determining
> distributability and need to be listed, so if the test suite is not
> included in the archive, don't list its license.
> 
> If it is installed, there isn't much you can do. You have to list the
> license since it does need to be checked for compatibility against the
> dependencies. If a dependent is evaluating as non-distributable only
> because of GPL being in kdelibs4's license, and that dependent doesn't
> reference the GPL'd files at all, you can use 'license_noconflict kdelibs4'.
> 
> - Josh

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