Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 10:42:51PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote:
> It is relevant b/c, under your reading, to link libc with 'grep', you
> have to license libc under the GPL. So that means the libc distributed
> with Debian is a GPL libc, not an LGPL libc (ignoring for the moment
> that Debian does not in fact do the conversion). Since libc is under
> the GPL, you cannot link it to something like Apache, which is not
> licensed under the GPL and imposed additional requirements which the
> GPL does not impose.
You can distribute a work under more than one license, so I still don't
see why this is an issue.
Perhaps your claim is that when libc is distributed under the GPL we
can no longer distribute it under the LGPL?
> > > 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).
> >
> > Perl can already be distributed under the GPL.
>
> Where do you get this information from? Looking at
> http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html#srclic, I see it only
> being licensed as Artistic.
Quoting from /usr/doc/perl-5.005/copyright on my debian system:
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of either:
a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
later version, or
b) the "Artistic License" which comes with Debian.
If I pull down a copy of the perl sources, I see that this is an exact quote from
perl5.005_03/README, and that there's a "Copying" file there which contains the
text of the GPL.
Or, if I look at a random source file, I see comments such as:
/* perl.c
*
* Copyright (c) 1987-1999 Larry Wall
*
* You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public
* License or the Artistic License, as specified in the README file.
*
*/
/*
* "A ship then new they built for him/of mithril and of elven glass" --Bilbo
*/
By the way, I recall the same licensing conditions existed back when I was building
perl in 1989.
> > > 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).
> >
> > Well, I've filed a bug report against Debian's libc6 on this issue.
> > I suspect that the issue has been ignored because the advertising clause
> > is considered unenforceable.
>
> So you know that to be true in each jurisdiction where Debian is
> distributed? and under what theory is it considered unenforceable?
Do you think "I suspect" equates to any kind of guarantee of in depth
knowledge of this particular issue? I can tell you what I remember
from the discussions where I've been told that it was unenforceable,
but I have not studied this issue personally.
> And, incidentally, there are *two* advertising clauses. One says you have
> to acknowledge the copyright holder; I suppose this is the one you think
> "unenforceable". But there is also the other one which says you cannot use
> the copyright holder's name to promote the software.
The reason that this is considered unenforcable is that advertising is not
related to copying. If the advertisements themselves included BSD copyrighted
material, that would be a different story.
And, that reminds me, the GPL doesn't concern itself with advertising or
promotions -- those activities are outside the scope of the license.
The BSD advertising clauses do not restrict the distribution or
modification of BSD code, it's pretty obvious that the major problem
with the clauses is that they confuse people, such as yourself, who are
trying to understand the licensing issues.
I'm going to clip some material from your post which appears to me to
reiterate your position that the advertising clause is relevant. If you
think I've missed some important point, please mention it, and I'll
post a response which addresses this point.
> If now you consider enforceability relevant to the interpretation of the
> GPL, I suggest you revisit your claim that you can license X code under the
> GPL, b/c that is less likely to be enforceable than is the advertising
> clause.
Which claim?
> Anyway, it goes beyond the advertising clause. Certain parts of FSF's
> libc specify that they must be licensed under terms other than the
> GPL, hence they cannot be licensed under the GPL (just like X can't);
> and certain parts (like libio) are licensed under the GPL and hence
> cannot be combined with LGPL works like libc. However, unlike X, these
> portions are not dynamically linked to libc; they are definitely part
> of the entire work.
The special libio exception does not require dynamic linking.
> > > 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)).
> >
> > If the advertising clause is legally relevant, yes.
>
> Well, I thought that since Debian hasn't had an IPO, legal uncertainty is
> enough to prevent distribution ;-) ?
In the case of KDE, it's obvious that there are >>authors<< of some of
the code (Troll, and the original authors of works behind kghostview,
kmidi, kscd, kdvi, ...) who could be upset if we distributed kde executables
under the terms of the GPL, and acted on either of the licenses involved
as if either of the licenses were satisfied.
I don't see how that's relevant to the BSD issues.
> > > Oh well, I guess Debian can't distribute Apache or Perl unless you
> > > remove libio from your libc :-(.
> >
> > Again, this isn't even an issue if the advertising clause is not
> > legally relevant.
>
> It's relevant b/c you cannot relicense Apache or Perl under the GPL, and,
> as you have claimed, linking with GPL works requires that to happen.
Not for the case of libio, or any material which carries the libio exception
to the GPL.
> Moreover, I suspect you are ignoring the two types of advertising
> clauses at issue which make Apache and Perl incompatible with the GPL
> (under your curious reading of what makes something incompatible with
> the GPL -- this greater rights/lesser rights conception).
There's a very tenuous possibility that we do need to pull Apache.
I'm not convinced yet. I don't see that even that ghost of a possibility
exists for Perl.
> > libio is GPL + an exception, not just plain GPL.
>
> The exception not being relevant.
What legal basis do you have for this claim?
> You say if you modify a GPL work (libio), you must license the entire
> result under the GPL. But someone has modified libio by adding libc to
> it and is now distributing it under the LGPL. If you think this is OK,
> then you should be able to take GPL code and add it to Qt; I don't see
> any difference.
I don't see anything like the libio exception on the other GPLed works.
> > > 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 . . . .).
> >
> > If you find copyright bugs, I'll be happy to file bug reports.
> > I've already filed one on the advertising clause issue -- and I'm not
> > completely confident that that bug report isn't bogus. So I'll not be
> > filing any more on that issue until I find out more. But if you find
> > any other sorts of copyright bugs I'll be grateful.
>
> Sure, let me name a few before doing more research (once I see you are
> serious about removing these packages from Debian I will take the time to
> delve deeper):
>
> (1) Artistic license code, such as Perl, has advertising
> restrictions which are incompatible with Section 6 of the GPL;
Advertising clause -- probably a bogus issue. I'm waiting to find out
more.
> (2) Apache cannot be relicensed under the GPL and also has
> incompatible advertising restrictions and also an incompatible requirement
> to rename modified works (clause 5 of the license);
Advertising clause -- probably a bogus issue. I'm waiting to find out
more.
> (3) X cannot be relicensed under the GPL; and
This is not a statement from the X license. Irrelevant.
> (4) libc (both your modified one and the FSF's) contains code
> which cannot be licensed under the GPL.
This code has the libio exception. Irrelevant.
> There's four bugs for you. I realize that once you remove libc, X,
> Apache and Perl there won't be much left of Debian, so at that point
> you probably won't need me to do any further research. (Or maybe you
> can get all the authors of GPL'd programs that link to X to write a
> special exception into their License saying it is OK to link against
> X? And maybe the Apache Group will release Apache under the GPL so you
> can continue to distribute it?)
Ok, you convinced me, I made a mistake. Where I said:
"If you find copyright bugs, I'll be happy to file bug reports."
I should have qualified it:
"If you find any other copyright bugs, I'll be happy to file bug reports
if they seem significant -- I've already filed as many bug reports as I
think the copyrights we've discussed deserve, but it's always possible that
there are other bugs."
I apologize for not saying this the first time.
> > > 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.
> >
> > Like I said: if you find any problems, I'll file bug reports.
>
> OK, I'll wait and see whether Debian really believes what it says or
> whether its just blowing smoke at KDE; I certainly don't have time
> to catalog license problems (under your reading of the GPL) when
> they will be ignored just b/c the program is popular with Debian
> developers.
We believe there are authors involved in the creation of kde who would
be unhappy if we interpreted the licenses on KDE material as if they were
legally valid. We do not believe that's the case for these other works.
The worst problem is: If we took the GPL as literally true and distributed
modified Qt with GPLed modifications, would Troll be happy with us?
--
Raul
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