Re: vis5d license
>I am still worried :( Problem is that lui is still not GPL that way. Not even
>DFSG free. This means that we can not distribute it as part of the main
>distribution :((
>
>Also it breaks the GPL to link with non-free code. Not that you have to care
>since it is your code. But Debian has to obey copyright rules. We can't
>afford spending money on court procedures if at all avoidable.
It depends upon the nature of the permission that Stellar gave to the Vis5D
developers. If they gave permission to distribute the code with Vis5d
under the GPL, then that is ideal. In this case, for clarity the license
statement for the LUI code should almost certainly be changed to reflect
that it is under the GPL with permission from Stellar.
Otherwise, I believe Torsten is quite correct in that it technically
violates the GPL to link with that code, which is usually interpreted to
mean that the copright holders (who can violate their own license) can
distribute Vis5d, but no one else can legally do so. This can be fixed by
modifying the Vis5d license to include an additional clause like:
"As a special exception to the terms of the GNU General Public License,
Vis5d may be linked with the LUI library included with Vis5d, which is
licensed for distribution with Vis5d by Stellar Computer, Inc."
(This would go after the, "This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License..." paragraph in each source code file.)
Cordially,
Steven G. Johnson
PS. I am not a lawyer, either, although I have been following
software-licensing issues closely for some time.
Reply to: