Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Raul Miller wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2000 at 03:46:48AM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote:
> > >
[ Raul Miller wrote: ]
>
> > > No clauses from the BSD license were presented which conflicted with
> > > any of the clauses from the GPL.
> >
[ Andreas Pour wrote: ]
> > The advertising clause is a "further restrictions on the recipients' exercise
> > of the rights granted herein" (Section 6 of the GPL).
[ Raul Miller responded: ]
> That clause was discarded years ago. The BSD license no longer contains it.
>
> As I understand it, that clause was discarded because:
>
> (1) it was unenforcable, and
> (2) it conflicted with the GPL.
OK, so you admit that the advertising clause conflicts with the GPL. Well, that's
very interesting, b/c the Apache license (see http://www.apache.org/LICENSE.txt,
clause 3) includes this provision, as well as several others (clauses 4 and 5)
that are inconsistent with the GPL. Now, Apache links with libc, and under your
reading of the GPL, Debian must distribute libc under the GPL rather than the LGPL
(as (1) you read Sections 3(a) and 2(b) of the GPL to require the "entire Program"
to be licensed under the GPL, (2) you link libc with actually GPL'd programs, such
as 'grep', and (3) you provide only one copy of libc which can be either LGPL or
GPL, but not both). Hence Apache links to a GPL'd work. Nevertheless, Debian
distributes Apache (see http://www.debian.org/Packages/stable/web/).
Incidentally, Perl (http://www.debian.org/Packages/stable/interpreters/) has the
same problem as Apache. Have a look at clause 9 of the Artistic License
(http://www.perl.com/language/misc/Artistic.html).
What's even more interesting is that FSF distributes BSD-licensed code as part of
libc. See http://www.gnu.org/manual/glibc-2.0.6/html_node/libc_524.html. The
notable part about that is, this code retains the advertising clause. It also
contains DEC-licensed code, which not only includes an advertising clause, but,
also specifies that its license applies to all redistributions (and hence the code
cannot be distributed under GPL or LGPL).
Moreover, having looked at your libc license
(http://cgi.debian.org/cgi-bin/get-copyright?package=libc6), Debian has not in
fact converted libc to GPL, and Debian appears to distribute only one copy of
libc, so I guess all Debian's GPL programs that link to it are in violation of the
GPL (under your reading of Sections 3(a) and 2(b)).
When will I see Debian start distributing a separate libc/libgdbm that is in fact
licensed under the LGPL and to which only non-GPL programs link, since under
Debian's reading GPL works cannot link to LGPL libraries?
Ohhh, but darn it, even that won't work. Debian's libc includes libio, and libio
is licensed under the GPL (see
http://cgi.debian.org/cgi-bin/get-copyright?package=libc6) (I note that the
exception in the libio license, which says the executable is not governed by the
GPL, does not apply to the source code, and your reading of Sections 3(a) and 2(b)
apply to the source code). Oh well, I guess Debian can't distribute Apache or
Perl unless you remove libio from your libc :-(.
Interestingly enough, it looks like Debian somehow thinks it can distribute libc
linked to libio, even though one is (apparently) under the LGPL, and libio is
licensed under the GPL, and they are a single work (no dynamic linking issues come
up).
I found all these problems just looking at your packages for a few minutes. How
many could I find if I looked at all your packages? If you promise to make
changes to comply with your own reading of the GPL, I will be happy to perform
this service for you (of course, there will not be a working Debian distribution
left afterwards . . . .).
The more you look at reality, the more absurd your interpretation that Section
2(b) requires licensing all source code under the GPL. Nobody, not even the FSF
or Debian, does this.
Ciao,
Andreas
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