[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Ghostscript licensing changed to AGPL



Hi Jonas,

On 06/05/14, 11:05am, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Ghostscript have changed its license from GPL-3+ to AGPL-3+ since 
> version 9.07.
> 
> Ghostscript includes a library - libgs9 - licensed as AGPL-3+ like the 
> rest of the project.  It also includes a set of Type1 fonts apparently¹
> licensed the same.
> 
> I've tried² suggest relicensing of the library part, mentioning the the 
> problems AGPL has for libraries and fonts, and referring to our recent 
> thread here.  Seems they have no interest in such change - or perhaps I 
> simply failed in getting the message across - perhaps others here can 
> help explain them the problems better than me.

I saw it and I fail to see what exactly they want to achieve with this
change since AGPLv3 is for web apps. I see you exposed your position
very well but they didn't gave specifics on what they want to avoid with
this besides "protect against commercial use of GPL Ghostscript" which I
believe is bad enough in DFSG terms.
> 
> Seems that these projects may link against Ghostscript, and therefore 
> (possibly) effectively becomes AGPL-3+ with this change:
> 
>   * gimp
>   * texlive-bin (texlive-binaries)

Actually with this one is worst, since the LPPL is not compatible with
the GPL, lets not even talk about GPLv3 or AGPLv3 :-/

[snip]
> 
> AGPL Ghostscript is now in experimental.  How to proceed?

I think we should get some feedback from debian-legal before doing
anything. We need to be aware of their intention, how they plan to
proceed on their "protection against commercial use" of Ghostscript and
what are the implications for the currently linked applications.

Kind Regards.

-- 
Jose Luis Rivas | ghostbar
The Debian Project → <http://www.debian.org>
GPG 3E7D 4267 AFD5 2407 2A37 20AC 38A0 AD5B CACA B118


Reply to: