On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Fri, 2008-05-30 at 17:20 +0200, Yaakov Nemoy wrote: >> Hi List, >> >> My mentor would like to use a library for part of his GSoC work that >> is licensed partially under the BSD license and partially under the >> Apache License. The library is PlotKit and can be found here: >> >> http://www.liquidx.net/plotkit/ >> >> As far as bundeling the library, we can always encourage him to create >> a separate package for Fedora, so that we can ship Smolt as a GPL2 >> only package with a dependency. In terms of GSoC related things, it's >> one more way to encourage him to join the community, of course. My >> only question is though, are we allowed to link to this library? I'm >> afraid I don't quite understand the nuances of a mixed license >> environment. Or would we need to fork the library to match licenses? > > Off the cuff (I've not looked at plotkit, or what you want to link it > to)... > > If plotkit is under both the BSD and the ASL 2.0 (yes, it does matter > what version of the Apache license it uses), any linking would need to > meet the terms of both licenses. ASL 2.0 is GPLv2 incompatible, but > GPLv3 compatible. If Smolt would depend on PlotKit, this would be > problematic (unless Smolt is GPLv2+, in which case, the complete work > would likely be interpreted as GPLv3). > > Alternately, Smolt could add an exception permitting linking to code > under the Apache 2.0 license, something like: > > In addition, as a special exception, [the copyright holder] gives > permission to link the code of its release of Smolt with the > "PlotKit" library (or with modified versions of it that use the same > license as the "PlotKit" library), and distribute the linked > executables. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all > respects for all of the code used other than "PlotKit". If you modify > this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file, > but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, > delete this exception statement from your version. > > You'd need to get permission of the copyright holder to do this, which I > suspect is Red Hat, Inc. If you want to go down this path, email Richard > Fontana <rfontana@xxxxxxxxxx> directly and CC me. Luckily, the copyright holder is Mike McGrath. I can take it up with him. An exception seems like a good idea to me though. Thanks for the fast reply. -Yaakov _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board mailing list fedora-advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board