Re: System libraries and the GPLv2
Excerpts from Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez's message of 2017-03-30 02:49:04 +0200:
> On 30/03/17 00:24, Philipp Kern wrote:
> > On 03/29/2017 11:10 PM, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez wrote:
> >> So, the best case situation (IMHO) would be that a lawyer tell us that
> >> Apache 2.0 is also compatible with GPLv2-only, and that we stop playing
> >> the game of being amateur lawyers instead of software developers.
> >
> > But that's not how the law works in the US. Without actual litigation
> > and precedent, the most you'll get is a risk assessment of getting sued
> > and your likelihood of winning if so. :)
> >
> > Kind regards and IANAL
> > Philipp Kern
> >
> >
>
> Right. That is how it also works in Spain, and I suspect that in many
> other countries work the same way.
>
> I understand that Debian wants to take a position of zero (or minimal)
> risk, and I also understand the desire to respect the interpretation of
> the FSF about the GPL (they don't think this two licenses are compatibles).
>
I believe that this is a fundamental difference between RedHat and Debian.
RedHat is going to do everything within the law and inside their values
for a profit. Their values don't include a strict adherence to the wishes
of copyright holders, but strict adherence to the law.
But our values do include respect for copyright holder rights. So while
we can probably get away with this legally, it's been decided (a few
times?) that without the GPL licensor's consent, we can't in good faith
produce a combination of OpenSSL and a GPL program.
Perhaps enough time has passed to reconsider. IMO this is not so much a
legal matter, but a moral and ethical one. We also have to think about
what to do with the Apache 2 licensed OpenSSL, which makes this a good
time to start thinking about it again.
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