Re: Recently released QPL
> > As I'm sure you know, it's perfectly legal to combine GPL and X and BSD
> > code into the same program.
Jonathan P Tomer <phouchg@cif.rochester.edu> wrote:
> yes, but one has to change the license of the final work in ways that
> authors are sometimes unwilling and/or unable (ie the original author
> does not exist/cannot be found) to do, for one reason or another; this
> causes some amount of loss of sharing and wasted effort when things
> clash due to licensing issues that most everyone agrees are pretty
> stupid.
This is a completely different issue and has *nothing* to do with legal
restrictions. For example, you're not likely to see GPL code in the
core X distribution, nor in an official NetBSD or FreeBSD or BSDI or
OpenBSD kernel.
I understand that you're trying to come up with a solution that covers
a few more problems than the half a dozen KDE packages not originally
written by the KDE authors. But I don't think that overgeneralizing it
["most everyone agrees" or, earlier "no non-gpl works may be used in
conjunction with gpl code"] is a good idea.
> > However, what I believe you're pointing out is that: because the
> > DFSG doesn't provide exactly the same guidelines as the GPL,
> > it's possible to have DFSG code which can't be combined in the
> > same program as the GPL. [Then again, the same goes for other
> > combinations of DFSG licenses.]
> pretty much, yes. and as i have pointed out i'm picking on one
> particular combination of licence, because it's <a> the most
> glaring/popular/etc., and <b> the first one i thought of.
Er.. but you need to make sure the claims you're making for your
solution are accurate. If you claim to solve problems that you don't
solve then as soon as people try to actually use your solution they'll
be rather unhappy.
> > It's probably worth pointing out that DFSG was never intended to
> > make sure that all debian programs could be combined arbitrarily to
> > create new programs. Otherwise there are some significant programs
> > we'd have to kick out of main.
>
> > Basically, I think you want to derive something with the transitive
> > ["viral"] qualities of the GPL which still allows any DFSG code to
> > be combined with it. But this can never work because, for example,
> > the DFSG does not prohibit a license from having a clause of the
> > form: No other licenses may be applied to this program.
> >
> > So you'd have to derive a new DFSG as well, to make this work.
>
> well, it doesn't have to be perfect; i'd just like one that's a little
> more tolerant. if there are compatibility issues on the other side i
> can't really do much about it. to paraphrase a certain document by
> a recently-discussed author, i don't want to solve all the world's
> problems, only some of them. ;p
Ok, it looks like we're pretty much agreed on what the problem is here:
that we haven't agreed on what problem you're actually trying to solve.
You've got several independent yet conflicting statements of what you're
trying to do -- some of which are self contradictory.
I can also come up with simple variants which may or may not be along
the lines of what you're looking for (e.g. an variant of the LGPL
which requires that the unmodified source for the program as a whole
be distributed at no charge to all third parties: but without any
requirements that it be modifiable by all third parties).
My problem is that I can't solve the problem you say you want to solve
because that problem isn't solvable. [For example the variant LGPL which
I just proposed isn't the sort of thing that could get incorporated into
X nor into a BSD project.]
--
Raul
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