Re: XForms GPL exception...

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Tom Lear <tom@trap.mtview.ca.us> writes:

> > > + 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).  If a

> > I interpret that sentence as clarifying the point that the binary
> > is linked to a library, and thus we need `permission' to
> > distribute the part of the binary that is XForms code.  We have
> > that permissiom from the XForms license:

> Well I think that sentence confuses things, specifically the word
> "separate" which to me implies separate from the licence that xforms is
> distributed under.  Maybe somthing like "(You already have permission to
> distribute the binary form of xforms from the xforms licence)".  But I
> think I'd prefer the line be removed entirely.

I was the one who proposed that addition. The point was to be explicit
about the facts that:

1. You can only distribute binaries linked to the library if you
   have the permissions from the main program's author AND the
   library authors.

2. The main program's author hereby gives you his permission.

3. The main program's author cannot give you the library authors'
   permission

so that the library authors cannot sue the main program author for
encouraging people to infringe on their copyright (which would have
been a possible legal interpretation of a licence that said "oh, and
you can distribute the linked binaries. No problem there").

I don't think anything would be lost by removing the word "separate".

But your proposed rephasing seems less than ideal - it sounds as if
you are giving a guarantee that the XForms people will never change
their minds about future libraries they choose to call XForms (and,
for that matter, that the license file you've looked at was not
faked).

Debian probably wouldn't have a problem with that, but the author
himself might get into trouble.

-- 
Henning Makholm