On Thu, Jan 14, 1999 at 01:11:57PM +0100, Kristoffer.Rose@ENS-Lyon.FR wrote:
> PS. Please cc me as I am not on the debian-legal list.
Sure.
> Summary: The question is whether the program HUGS released under Perl's
> "Artistic" license can be distributed in "main" in a version linked with
> libreadline which is GPL'd.
All the rumours /I've/ heard, says that the Artistic license isn't
GPL compatible. This probably doesn't mean much, though.
The *simplest* solution, if the HUGS people are amenable to clarifying
their license is to use a Perl-like license, ie:
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of either:
a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
later version, or
b) the "Artistic License" which comes with Debian.
I say `clarification', because linking with libreadline requires that the
HUGS code be able to be redistributed and/or modified under the GPL. If
they don't want to let people distribute it under the GPL, they (we)
can't distribute binaries linked to GPLed libs.
The non-GPL bit is, I presume, section 4 of the Artistic license:
``You may distribute executables provided:
a) They're not based on modified source
or b) It's accompanied by source
or c) You change the names of the binaries
or d) You contact the copyright holder and make other arrangements''
(paraphrased)
If it were GPLed, you'd be able to distribute executables, based on
modified source, accompanying it with only an offer for the source,
without changing the names of any of the executables, and without
having to contact the author. But you can't, so it isn't. Or that's
how it looks to me.
I'd personally suggest following Perl's lead though.
FWIW, HTH, IANAL, etc.
Cheers,
aj, who should get around to learning Haskell one of these days
Attachment:
pgpPi6ZYG_PdZ.pgp
Description: PGP signature