6 GPL'ed Packages that depend on XForms.

[Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>]

Hello fellow Debian developers,

As you may know, the GPL is not compatible with XForms and
packages that depend on XForms need to use another license or
contain some sort of exception clause.

There are 12 packages in potato that depend on XForms, and 6 of
them use the plain GPL without such an exception clause:

 xldlas, xplot, xmysql, xisp, xfmix, xwatch

(two of those are mine, and I'm working on the issue).  I'm
contacting you now to let you know about the problem while
there's still time to fix it before the freeze (and not have your
package yanked from the distribution).  Since the upstream
authors have released the relevant code under the GPL, their
intentions are good and they should be receptive to adding an
exception clause.  It would be best if we could discuss this now
with the debian-legal crowd and come up with the best possible
clause, and not have to bother upstream authors more than once
with this issue.

A 7th package, xcolmix, use this exception clause:

  You may, at your option and for the purposes of distributing this
  program in object code or executable form under Section 3 of the
  GNU General Public License, assume that the xforms library
  (Copyright (c) by T.C. Zhao and Mark Overmars) is normally
  distributed with the major components of the operating system on
  which the executable or object code runs. If you choose not to
  excercise this option, you may distribute this software only
  under the terms of the GNU General Public License and may remove
  this paragraph.

(see http://cgi.debian.org/cgi-bin/get-copyright?package=xcolmix)

This clause is apparently sub-optimal, so I'm not suggesting that
you suggest it to your upstream author.  The opinion on
debian-legal seems to be that refering to the `major components'
clause of the GPL is not a good idea because that prohibits
distributing the `major component' (XForms) along with the
package that depends on it.

My concern is to word a clause that will also linking to:
 - XForms,
 - a future freed XForms that would still be under a GPL
   incompatible license,
 - a current or future XForms compatible library (decendant from
   XForms or not).

and still protect against proprietary abuse (e.g. merging into
non-free code).

I also like the clause about the option of removing the clause
and using only the GPL (say for a fltk port).

I hope that debian-legal can come up with a clause that we can
all propose upstream, and that won't be contested 3 months from
now by someone who find yet another hole in the added clause.

Thanks for your cooperation and input,

Peter Galbraith <psg@debian.org>