Re: One unclear point in the Vim license
On Tue, Jan 01, 2002 at 11:55:20AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> It sounds to me like what you really want to support are two licensing
> schemes; one for people who publicize the source code of their changes
> to Vim, and one for people who don't. You can do this and still be
> totally DFSG-free, in spirit as well as letter.
>
> There are no restrictions on distributing unmodified copies of Vim.
> You can also distibute parts of Vim, but this license text must always
> be included. You are allowed to include executables that you made
> from the unmodified Vim sources, plus your own usage examples and Vim
> scripts.
>
> You are allowed to distribute a modified version of Vim when either of
> the following conditions are met:
> 1) You make your changes to the source code available to the general
> public, or to those to whom you distributed modified versions of
> Vim, with no restrictions on use, copying, modification, or
> distribution; or
> 2) You make your changes to the source code available to the Vim
> maintainer at no charge, and grant him or her a perpertual license
> to use, copy, modify and distribute your changes without
> restriction. The preferred way to do this is by e-mail or by
> uploading the files to a server and e-mailing the URL. If the
> number of changes is small (e.g., a modified Makefile) e-mailing
> the diffs will do. The e-mail address to be used is
> <maintainer@vim.org>.
Would this kind of offer be GPL-compliant? It seems that one choice is
and one choice isn't; I'm not sure what the implications are.
Certainly, releasing a program under a GPL-compatible license doesn't
give you free reign to use GPL libraries with it if you negotiate a
different, incompatible license; I don't know how it works when there
are compatible and incompatible options.
--
Glenn Maynard
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