Re: 6 GPL'ed Packages that depend on XForms.

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca> writes:

> You mean allow linking and explicitely allow distribution, right?

Yes.

> You don't mean invoking the major components bit do you?

No, I think that is a clumsy solution to the problem.

>    "You may link this software with XForms (Copyright (c) by
>    T.C. Zhao and Mark Overmars) and distribute the resulting
>    binary.  You are not required to include this paragraph in the
>    license for derivatives of this software."

I feel a little bad about the *unrestricted* permission to distribute
the resulting binary; see my previous message.

Also I think it would be a good thing (even if not strictly
required by law) to spell out explicitly that you are not
purporting to relicense XForms itself.

I would suggest

    "You may link this software with XForms (Copyright (C) by
    T.C. Zhao and Mark Overmars) and distribute the resulting
    binary, under the restrictions in clause 3 of the GPL,
    even though the resulting binary is not, as a whole,
    covered by the GPL. (You still need a separate license
    to do so from the owner(s) of the copyright for XForms,
    however). You are not required to include this paragraph
    in the license for deriviatives of this software.

> (Isn't that implied anyway?  The GPL covers modication and
> distribution, not use.

Yes, but I think that in copyright terms the act of linking with a
library could be construed a "modification" and thus be subject to
copyright.

Thus a permission to only link with XForms would be meaningful even
if it did not extend to distribution of the linked binary. Because of
that I don't think that the latter should be implied.

-- 
Henning Makholm