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Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: license conflict in Emacs Lisp support?



Forgot to add debian-legal to CC, done now.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 08:43:45AM +0100, luther wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2004 at 05:03:05PM +0200, Kalle Olavi Niemitalo wrote:
> > Package: ocaml
> > Version: 3.07.2a-2
> > Severity: serious
> > 
> > While looking for the invalid `if' form in caml-types.el, I
> > noticed that the Emacs Lisp files of OCaml are "distributed under
> > the terms of the Q Public License version 1.0".  According to
> > <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200211/msg00217.html>,
> > RMS thinks "that a program that uses Emacs facilities needs to
> > be GPL-covered".
> 
> O, bother.
> 
> > If RMS is right about this, then it would seem that these files
> > cannot be distributed.
> 
> if RMS is right, then i will ask upstream to modify their licence, after
> all i am in good enough relation with them that i have other means of
> solving this kind of issues than the threat to remove stuff.
> 
> But let's first ask debian-legal about this.
> 
> Debian-legal, can you give me advice about this issue, so i can go to
> upstream with informed opinions and legal theory ?
> 
> I have some doubts about this, since th GPL is all about distribution,
> not use, and since we distribute the .el in source form and have them
> compiled on the users system, and the actual linking only occurs at use
> time, there is no way a GPL distribution restriction should apply.
> 
> Naturally, i could severly misunderstand something, which is why i
> search for the wisdom of debian-legal.
> 
> Friendly,
> 
> Sven Luther



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