Re: licensing confusion
Marek Habersack wrote:
>What crazy should be done with php4-gd then? Should it be crippled by not
>linking it with libfreetype6?
The PHP license appears to be compatible with the FTL, so there's no
problem. The fact that Freetype is /also/ available under the GPL is
irrelevant.
Code under two licenses can be mixed providing that all the requirements
of each license can be satisfied. The GPL is a special case here, since
one term states that no restrictions not already present in the GPL may
be applied to derivative works. As a result, the set of GPL compatible
licenses is much smaller.
>and what if one cannot do that because one is not the copyright holder of
>the software but merely its current developer/maintainer (and the copyright
>holder doesn't want to talk with that person/group)?
If your code is under a license that is incompatible with the GPL, and
you wish to link against GPLed code, and you are not the copyright
holder, you may not link against that GPLed code. This is because the
authors of that GPLed code have (as is their right) stated that they do
not want their code to be available under any terms more restrictive
than the GPL. You can ask them if they're willing to license their code
under a different license which would be compatible with your own, and
if you're very lucky they may say yes.
>Since it seems so easy to you, I would welcome any advice regarding
>http://caudium.net/ and OpenSSL. The former is derived from Roxen WebServer
>1.3, whose copyright belongs to RIS (http://roxen.com/) which company
>doesn't care about the old software and ignored all the attempts to request
>copyright transfer to the Caudium Group. I'm sure you will know the answer
>to that question and I'm grateful for it in advance,
If it is GPLed, you may not link it against OpenSSL and distribute that
combined work. If you're lucky, the GnuTLS compatibility layer for
OpenSSL will be good enough and you can link against that instead.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.devel@srcf.ucam.org
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