On Fri, 2012-05-11 at 10:29 -0400, Lex Berezhny wrote: > On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 7:15 AM, Jim Washington > <[email protected]> wrote: > > There's GPL code in pyjs? I was unaware. But (I am not a lawyer) even > > GPL is satisfied by maintaining the copyright information and providing > > the source code when distributing. Luke has been a stickler for that, > > and I do not see that changing under the new infrastructure. Since those > > provisions have not changed, I think it is unfair to consider the code > > to be a "legal minefield". The code itself has not done anything wrong. > > Any possible legal proceedings between the bosses should not affect > > anyone's usage of the code itself. It is all published with > > open-source-ish copyrights, so it is still usable, and (did I say I am > > not a lawyer?) even if there is legal nastiness, whatever code you have > > git-pulled, git-cloned, or downloaded from either repository is still > > free to use, subject to its included copyright information. > > Copyright is not at issue here. The issue is licensing. >
Lex Yes. I meant licensing. Good thing I am not a lawyer! > GPL2 and Apache licenses cannot be mixed which is what is happening in > pyjs at the moment. > > See: http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html > Agreed, GPL2 is not compatible with Apache2! Read below; there is hope! > Most of the important GPL code in pyjs is related to pyjd so it's > probably (i'm not a laywer) okay to use the pyjs compiler (except for > a few files) but no businesses should be distributing pyjd apps. The > following files are marked as GPL (either in their source code or in > the main copyright file): > > pyjs/jsonrpc/cgihandler/__init__.py > pyjs/jsonrpc/mongrel2/__init__.py > pyjd/hula.py > pyjd/pywebkitgtk.py > pyjd/pywebkitgtknew.py > pyjd/pywebkitdfb.py > pyjd/sessionhistory.py > pyjd/progresslistener.py > > Some of this contamination was done by Luke as far as I can tell. This > is where his push for "free software" becomes dangerous and possibly > very costly to businesses who are naively using pyjs without actually > inspecting the code for contamination. Instead of contamination, let me call it a license someone chose so that I can use their code. Potato, potahto? The incompatibility between Apache2 and GPL2 in the repository would be a bigger problem if GPL3 did not exist. It turns out that Apache2 and GPL3 licenses are compatible. Also, the GPL2 licensing statement says that a licensee can, at their option, use a later version of GPL. This means, if logic works, that apps employing GPL2 + Apache2 code may be distributed under a GPL3 license. It also means that there really aren't any important legal problems distributing pyjd apps. The apps just need to be licensed GPL3 and distributed as .py source. Those wishing to distribute pyjd apps as .pyc files or under a different license probably will want to use a clean-room reimplementation without GPL encumbrance. Personally, I only use pyjd in-house, so the form of the current distribution license does not bother me at all. Copyleft or not, I'm just grateful that someone contributed it. It's a godsend for debugging. - Jim Washington
