Re: Summary of KDE threads?
> > Quick summary: it's illegal to ship GPLed code which is a part of
> > something which specifically requires both the GPLed code and some
> > non-free code. So we probably shouldn't be putting any GPLed code in
> > contrib.
Bart Schuller <schuller@lunatech.com> wrote:
> That's too large a brush. The "requires" in the sentence above only
> refers to linking (be it static or dynamic) to non-free code. As far as
> I know, contrib is also for free software which is only useful together
> with non-free software, for example because it calls some non-free
> program. That's perfectly legal under the GPL.
No, section 2 of the GPL (the part that makes these restrictions) applies
to the source as well. It's section 3 that makes a distinction between
source and object. It's not legal to distribute such things under the
terms of the GPL unless you satisfy the requirements of section 10
(write the author for permission -- and get an exception to the terms
of the GPL).
Contrib is the right place, but we still have to satisfy the terms of
the GPL,
if the software has this license.
> So simply grepping contrib for the word GPL and evicting any hits from
> contrib is too simple.
Quite true. [Which is why I made the effort to read the copyright files
from each package in contrib. I still have them unpacked if you want
me to refer back to any.]
> The problem is that a Debian dependency can not easily be identified
> as being a library dependency.
No, this is not a problem at all.
--
Raul
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