Re: Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: Worse, the QPL is not DFSG-free
Please CC me, as i am not subscribed, and uysing lynx over ssh to participate
is hardly convenient.
>On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 08:12:17PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
>> WRONG. Debian is distributing them in source form, and the compilation is done
>> at installation time, and the linking at emacs run time. Furthermore, since i
>> remove them from binary packages, even the above is not done.
>
>Assuming this mattered at all to a court of law, a judge isn't going
>to look at package structure to determine what's distributed. A judge
>is going to look at what winds up being put on the machine by the
>distribution process.
>
>Unless the license specifically gets into the technical details, the
>bits on the wire don't matter very much.
Err, have you read the GPL licence recently ? If it is not specifically into
every detail, i dont' know what is. There is specific text about binding and
such, and it makes explicit mentions of distribution of a work linked with the
GPLed work.
As such, shipping a source emacs .el file, which is incompatible with the GPL
is in no way a violation of it, it would only be if we shipped the result of
its linking, which we don't do.
I would agree, altough reluctantly, as a courtesy to RMS which asked us not
to, to not ship these files in the binary packages since their intention is
clearly to be linked with emacs, a potential QPLed emacs clone not
withstanding. This doesn't mean that shipping it in the source package is
problematic, since there is no way we such facilitate this linking. Compare
that to providing the URL in the README.Debian on how to find it for example.
And i repeat, the consensus here back then was that we should not ship those
files, as a courtesy to RMS. There was no real consensus about the legality of
their distribution.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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