mån 2003-05-12 klockan 10.54 skrev David Neary: > > > To be quite honest, I think this is GNU throwing a hissy fit > > > because BSD people don't agree with them. I believe that any > > > challenge to the licencing of code as GPL because it contains BSD > > > code would fail. > > > > I doubt that, as the revised BSD license without the advertizing clause > > has been deemed perfectly compatible with the GPL > > (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses). > > Clearly, it's the advertising clause that causes problems. > > Ah. That clears things up. Almost all of the questionable code > (including the gif code, and the nlfilt code) is not BSD licenced > in the old sense, only in the new sense. It does not require a > notice on all materials, and resembles more the X11 licence, or > the artistic licence V. 2.0 - in which case, it seems to me like > we can steamroller through this problem, and do as I suggested > (GPL all the files in question, leaving in the comment from the > original author). I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish. For files with BSD license but without the advertizing clause, there is no problem as I see it, and there's no need to change the license. It's already compatible with the GPL and the aggregate is distributable, AFAIK. It's only those files who have BSD licenses with advertizing clauses that needs change, either by the author agreeing to change to the revised BSD license, or any other GPL compatible license. But a change in license requires the copyright owner's permission, as one of the fundamentals of copyright is that the copyright owner solely determines the conditions (the license). Thus, it seems like overkill to ask, and get permission from, the authors (copyright owners) of all non-GPL files for relicensing to GPL when it may not be needed in all cases. > > > I don't see a problem with it. And, to be honest, anyone who > > > considers adding a comment to the top of a source file a > > > restriction is being seriously pedantic. > > > > I thought I had already mentioned that this isn't only about source file > > comments (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html)... To be honest, if > > you have problems with the original BSD license and GPL incompatibility, > > I suggest you bring it up on a GNU mailing list. Or any other list with > > legal experts. This discussion has little to do with GIMP. > > As I said above, the code in question doesn't have the 'obnoxious > advertising clause' in it. Does this mean that we can relicence > it, and stay GPL compliant? As you suggest, I'm going to cc a GNU > person here. You cannot relicense without the author's permission, and I fail to see the need for that anyway if there's no advertizing clause. See above. > > You're free to cc: me directly on such a discussion, but I don't think > > the GIMP mailing list is the right forum. > > Unfortunately, since we're talking about the licencing of code > distributed with the GIMP, this is still an appropriate forum. The discussion turned unnecessarily broad in scope and was only loosely connected to the GIMP problem. If you intend to keep it connected to the GIMP problem, I fully agree that keeping it on this list is the best thing to do. Christian
