> Fortunately -- or perhaps unfortunately, depending on one's perspective -- > Kyle did an excellent job of the port. For my part, this puts me in a > difficult position. On one hand I feel an obligation to Kyle since I told > him I felt he could distribute Wesnoth on the app store if he undertook the > substantial effort to complete the port. On the other hand, I am of course > obliged to all of the Wesnoth developers who have contributed content under > the terms of the GPL, and specifically those ones who feel strongly that > source code availability and other measures are not sufficient to meet the > terms of the GPL and thus that Wesnoth being distributed on the app store is > a very serious violation of the GPL. This is all my fault, of course: I > should have researched the issue much more thoroughly -- and probably > discussed it much more openly than with the few developers I did discuss it > with when Kyle suggested the port. > > I agree that to resolve the situation, we need to make it clear that to > allow the iPhone/app store port to be unarguably uninfringing on anyone's > rights, that a licensing exception has to be agreed to by any developer who > has contributed a substantial amount of C++ code [1] to Wesnoth. Any > developer who objects to the licensing exception will have to have their > code removed from Wesnoth, or at least from the iPhone port of Wesnoth (with > steps taken to ensure it's not re-added in any future merges). > > > David >
I don't agree that adding a licensing exception is needed. I think that this clause in the apple store terms of service makes it quite clear that the GPL has precedence in governing the usage of the software: "(xiii) Usage rules for software Products are governed by the terms of any end-user agreements or other terms and conditions required for use of such Products. " I think adding an exception is the wrong way to go. If people feel it is necessary we could make it even more clear that the GPL is the governing agreement, regardless of what other Apple usage policies may be. If apple disagrees, they can remove Wesnoth. If the FSF disagrees they can threaten to sue. We should not hamper ourselves by preemptively assuming that the GPL is not the governing license under which Wesnoth is being distributed on the apple store. I think adding a license exception is a dangerous precedent. John McNabb DarthFool _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
