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

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

John Hasler wrote:

>   "You may link this software with XForms.  You are not required to include
>   this paragraph in the license for derivatives of this software."

Ok, now we're rolling...
xcolmix now has this (which was going to be used also for xwatch
and xplot):

  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.

I prefer John's add-on clause to the GPL to the one used in
xcolmix because:

 - it's short and sweet.
 - it doesn't invoke the `major components' clause.

I know that it doesn't allow linking against future possible
derivatives of XForms unless they are themselves GPL compatible,
but I think it protects the package faily real in exchange.
Hopefully, the future XForms replacement will be GPL compatible
anyway (someone should make FLTK drop-in compatible!).

The only thing I'd add to John's paragraph is:

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

This protect against linking to _anything_ that happens to be
called XForms.

If 3 packages in contrib were to use the paragraph above as an
add-on clause to the GPL, would anyone on this list complain?

Thanks!

Peter