Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)

[Andreas Pour <pour@mieterra.com>]

Raul Miller wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 07:50:31PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote:
> >     Section 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU
> >     General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of
> >     the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer
> >     to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General
> >     Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. (If a newer
> >     version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License
> >     has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you
> >     wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices.
> >
> >     Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for
> >     that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to
> >     all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy.
> >
> >     This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of
> >     the Library into a program that is not a library.
> >
> > Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence, so even I can comprehend it.
> 
> Excuse me.
> 
> Your "sentence by sentence" treatment managed to completely ignore that
> third paragraph of section 3.

Well, it's clearly not a requirement, it's a
suggestion/commentary, so not
especially relevant in determining one's obligations under
the LGPL.

> 
> What do you think it means?

Let's see, I think it suggests that you might want to do
this "irreversible"
conversion if "you wish to copy part of the code of the
Library into a
program that is not a library."

I also think it suggests that the authors of the LGPL did
not agree with the
interpretation that requires the "complete source code" to
be licensed under
the GPL (esp. when considered with the preamble language
which states "in a
textual and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined
work, a
derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General
Public License
treats it as such", which does signal the belief that the
"complete source
code" for purposes of Section 3(a) of the GPL would include
the library), 
though I would not rely on one license to interpret a
different one.

I suppose that since you think I "ignored" this suggestive
sentence that
you think somehow it changes the meaning of the preceding
paragraphs?

Ciao,

Andreas