Question about GPL and non-free dual licensing
Shriramana Sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Say someone creates a library libfoo in the C language. The library > is dual-licenced -- under the GPL and under a commercial > licence. Please note that the GPL *is* a commercial license. Nothing in it prevents anyone engaging in commerce -- selling the software or anything related to it -- and many organisations and individuals have been doing exactly that for many years. Free software *is* commercial software; any software with a license that restricted its sale is non-free by definition. Mistakenly using "commercial" as though it were the opposite of "free" spreads the fallacy. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/selling.html> The distinction you may be looking for is "under the GPL and under a non-free license". http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/words-to-avoid.html#Commercial> -- \"The errors of great men are venerable because they are more | `\ fruitful than the truths of little men." -- Friedrich Nietzsche | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
Ian Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Ben Finney writes ("Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing
> / freeness issue"):
> > [The status quo] doesn't address the concern that motivated this
> > discussion: that the license texts which have restrictions on
> > modification are non-free works by the DFSG, yet are being
> > distributed in Debian against the Social Contract.
>
> This concern DOES NOT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED. It needs to be IGNORED.
You seem to be saying that a violation of the social contract should
be ignored. My response to that is that where there is a violation,
the social contract and actual practice are out of sync, and one or
the other (or both) needs to be changed.
If that's not what you're saying, please clarify.
--
\ "Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why |
`\ is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has |
_o__)evolved to do." -- Douglas Adams |
Ben Finney
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: License missing in the tarball but present on the website
On 10997 March 1977, Gonéri Le Bouder wrote: > Upstream published an errata on the website. The don't have a gpg key to > sign the post: > http://vdrift.net/article.php/license-change-2007-03-23-release > I will copy the post in the debian/changelog with a link to the website. > Is it enough? debian/copyright is the place where such stuff has to be. -- bye Joerg "Das Internet, jetzt auf 47 DVDs - oder auf 2 CDs in der jugenfreien Fassung"? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: License missing in the tarball but present on the website
>On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 12:24:26PM +0200, Gonéri Le Bouder wrote: ... >If the project is relatively fast moving and vdrift is >in etch, it might be a good idea to package it with the tarball updated >to reflect the licence change for etch r1 whenever that occurs and ask >for it to be put into stable-proposed-updates. This would cover all >bases: anyone who had got vdrift from r0 would be made aware: anyone >who installed from r1 onwards would automatically get the changed >licence terms. The concerned tarball is not in Etch. >Any lenny / sid package would just be packaged with the new licence. > >> My question is: in the debian/copyright, is it possible to refere to a >> license that is on a website or in an archived mailing list. >> >I don't think that's adequate, unfortunately. What if I install from >CD and have no 'Net access? Upstream published an errata on the website. The don't have a gpg key to sign the post: http://vdrift.net/article.php/license-change-2007-03-23-release I will copy the post in the debian/changelog with a link to the website. Is it enough? Best regards, Gonéri pgpZlG0Q5nFjF.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: question about gpl-commercial dual licencing
El sábado, 21 de abril de 2007 a las 15:10:31 +0530, Shriramana Sharma escribía: > Say someone creates a library libfoo in the C language. The library is > dual-licenced -- under the GPL and under a commercial licence. GPL is > Now I create Python binding to that library - pyfoo. Now I would like to > dual-licence it myself, under the same terms -- GPL and a commercial > Now to get the right of dual-licensing, do I have to obtain a commercial > licence from the author of libfoo? > If yes, why? If no, why not? Please elucidate. Thanks. Basically, if a customer of yours wanted to use pyfoo to create a Python application using libfoo which is distributed under terms other than the GPL, that customer of yours would need both a license from you and a license from the author of libfoo. Now, you could enter an agreement with the libfoo author so that you can sell directly pyfoo+libfoo licenses... -- Jacobo Tarrío | http://jacobo.tarrio.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backporting and dual-licensing
On 4/21/07, Shriramana Sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: My question is: What would be considered a big enough difference/modification that X would need Y's permission for backporting the changes? Anything that is big enough to legally create a derivative. 1. If Y fixes a bug (of whatever severity) with a patch? Depends on the patch. If it's only a typo then maybe not, if it's bigger then maybe. 2. If Y makes improvements to the library by optimizing some algorithms? Depends on the optimisations, but usually, yes. 3. If Y adds new functionality to the library? Almost definitely. 4. If Y just restructures the library in a more efficient manner. I'd say yes. -- Andrew Donnellan ajdlinuxATgmailDOTcom (primary)ajdlinuxATexemailDOTcomDOTau (secure) http://andrewdonnellan.com http://ajdlinux.wordpress.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] hkp://subkeys.pgp.net 0x5D4C0C58 http://linux.org.auhttp://debian.org Get free rewards - http://ezyrewards.com/?id=23484 Spammers only === [EMAIL PROTECTED] === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
backporting and dual-licensing
Say a person X writes a library libfoo. He licenses the library out under both the GPL and a commercial licence. A person Y uses libfoo under the GPL. He goes and does a lot of improvements in the library since it is under the GPL. Now the modified version of libfoo is copyrighted by both X and Y. So X would not be able to import such improvements into the main distribution of libfoo since then he would not be able to dual-licence it - specifically he would not be able to licence it commercially, not owning it entirely. He must either take Y into his business or obtain a waiver from Y by one-time payment or whatever. My question is: What would be considered a big enough difference/modification that X would need Y's permission for backporting the changes? 1. If Y fixes a bug (of whatever severity) with a patch? 2. If Y makes improvements to the library by optimizing some algorithms? 3. If Y adds new functionality to the library? 4. If Y just restructures the library in a more efficient manner. Shriramana Sharma. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: question about gpl-commercial dual licencing
On 4/21/07, Shriramana Sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hello all. Say someone creates a library libfoo in the C language. The library is dual-licenced -- under the GPL and under a commercial licence. GPL is for open-source consumers and commercial licence is for closed-source consumers. Now I create Python binding to that library - pyfoo. Now I would like to dual-licence it myself, under the same terms -- GPL and a commercial licence. Now to get the right of dual-licensing, do I have to obtain a commercial licence from the author of libfoo? If yes, why? If no, why not? Please elucidate. Thanks. If you created the bindings using ctypes or similar, where there's no actual linking taking place, I think it's all OK. Otherwise, I think you still need a license - you would be linking against the library to create the bindings, therefore creating a derivative work, and as you have received the library under the GPL the terms of the GPL must apply. Of course, it still depends on whether the commercial license gives permission to do stuff like that anyway. However, I think a nice email to the author can clear it all up anyway - your Python bindings would simply drive more sales of the commercial license anyway. -- Andrew Donnellan ajdlinuxATgmailDOTcom (primary)ajdlinuxATexemailDOTcomDOTau (secure) http://andrewdonnellan.com http://ajdlinux.wordpress.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] hkp://subkeys.pgp.net 0x5D4C0C58 http://linux.org.auhttp://debian.org Get free rewards - http://ezyrewards.com/?id=23484 Spammers only === [EMAIL PROTECTED] === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
question about gpl-commercial dual licencing
Hello all. Say someone creates a library libfoo in the C language. The library is dual-licenced -- under the GPL and under a commercial licence. GPL is for open-source consumers and commercial licence is for closed-source consumers. Now I create Python binding to that library - pyfoo. Now I would like to dual-licence it myself, under the same terms -- GPL and a commercial licence. Now to get the right of dual-licensing, do I have to obtain a commercial licence from the author of libfoo? If yes, why? If no, why not? Please elucidate. Thanks. Shriramana Sharma. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: License missing in the tarball but present on the website
On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 12:24:26PM +0200, Gonéri Le Bouder wrote: > Hello, > > The vdrift upstream uploaded a data tarball with some content licensed under > the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 license. > > After discution there are agree to relicense these files under GNU GPL > but the tarball is quite udge (> 200M) and so I think it should provably > be easier to publish a notification on the website. > Notes in the README.Debian and any relevant docs directory would help. A copy of their email would also be useful in there. This sort of thing would actually be useful in DWN. "$foo data relicensed to GPL" If the project is relatively fast moving and vdrift is in etch, it might be a good idea to package it with the tarball updated to reflect the licence change for etch r1 whenever that occurs and ask for it to be put into stable-proposed-updates. This would cover all bases: anyone who had got vdrift from r0 would be made aware: anyone who installed from r1 onwards would automatically get the changed licence terms. Any lenny / sid package would just be packaged with the new licence. > My question is: in the debian/copyright, is it possible to refere to a > license that is on a website or in an archived mailing list. > I don't think that's adequate, unfortunately. What if I install from CD and have no 'Net access? > Best regards, > >Gonéri All best, Andy
