Ben Fritz wrote: > On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 8:42 PM, James McCoy <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 08:31:48PM -0500, Benjamin Fritz wrote: > >> On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Bram Moolenaar <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > > >> > Ben Fritz wrote: > >> > > >> >> On Monday, May 21, 2012 12:59:47 PM UTC-5, Thilo Six wrote: > >> >> > > How about setting up an independent repo (not a clone) at > >> >> > > http://vim-runtime.googlecode.com/ > >> >> > > Code license: GNU GPL v2 > >> >> > > >> >> > runtimefiles are all (or better they all should be) licensed under > >> >> > Vim licences. > >> >> > >> >> Yeah, but Google Code only has a few allowed licenses. Vim License is > >> >> not one of them. Bram has dual-licensed Vim under GPL v2 and Vim > >> >> License to allow putting it on Google Code. > >> > > >> > The dual-license wasn't created for that reason :-). > >> > > >> > I suppose it's OK to list the work as GPL, since it's the more > >> > restrictive. Thus stays on the safe side. > >> > > >> > >> My mistake, I thought that was the reason, since it wasn't > >> dual-licensed to my knowledge until the Mercurial repo. Can you > >> enlighten us? > > > > The old CVS repository shows that the license text was added to > > runtime/doc/uganda.txt back in 2001[0] and it mentioned the GPL dual > > licensing then. > > > > [0]: > > http://vim.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/vim/vim/runtime/doc/uganda.txt?r1=1.53&r2=1.54&; > > I did not realize that. What are the reasons, then, for the dual > license? I feel kind of silly for not noticing until we went to the > Google Code repository. I do remember seeing a big licensing > discussion back around that time, where I learned that Google Code > only allows a limited set of licenses, GPL among them, so the fact > that Vim is dual-licensed allowed it to be in Google Code at all. I > guess the change wasn't made for that purpose though. So what were the > reasons, whenever the change was made (for curiosity's sake)?
There was a specific library that some Linux versions compiled Vim with, and this library was GPL. A Vim built that way could not be distributed, because there is a small incompatibility between GPL and the Vim license. To solve that the dual-license method was introduced. Richard Stallman was involved in updating the license text, thus it should be OK for everybody. -- Imagine a world without hypothetical situations. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [email protected] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ /// sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\ an exciting new programming language -- http://www.Zimbu.org /// \\\ help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org /// -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
