Re: bibindex should probably be GPLed.
On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 01:42:06PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > This political problem is my concern here. I understand that I CAN (if I
> > wish) release the modified sources under the GPL. My specific question here
> > is whether I HAVE TO release it under the GPL if I link with the GNU
> > Readline library (which is GPL'ed). Noticed that the original upstream
> > code (which is in "public domain") has nothing to do with the Readline
> > library, only my modifications are related to it.
>
> I think you have to. By linking bibindex with readline, you are creating
> "a work based on readline". According to the GPL under which readline
> is distributed, you have to distribute all of the work under GPL.
>
> [ I think a well-known ftp client had to be relicensed to GPL because
> of this reason (linking with readline), so there is a "precedent" ].
Thanks for your patience, Santiago, but I am really annoyed by this problem.
Do I have really to relicense the whole even if the original code have had
nothing to do in the past with my Readline additions? One could ponder that
only _my_ part of the work is based on Readline. I will really appreciate
if someone could confirm/second Santiago's point here: am I not allowed to
just release _my_ modifications under the GPL, leaving the rest in the
public domain? Could someone please point to me the relevant part of GPL
that states that?
> So I think you have two choices:
>
> a) Relicense the Debian package to GPL on your own.
> This is legal, public domain may be relicensed to whatever you want.
This will cause a political problem and I am not willing to do it.
> b) Ask the maintainers to do so. They should not refuse if linking with
> readline is in his TODO list for this package.
No, in their TODO list there was only a mention to a history mechanism, not
a explicit mention to the GNU redline library. BTW, in my patch that will
be integrated to the next upstream release, there is a fallback to a
rudimentary history control mechanism, implemented without Readline.
Sorry, for all this discussion, but I prefer to clarify the issues here in
debian-legal before approaching the upstream authors.
--
Rafael Laboissiere <rafael@debian.org>
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