GPL-Compatibility into the other direction (was: GPL compatibility of DFCL)
Hi
On Friday 14 June 2002 05:32, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > Essentially what I am getting at is the fact that just
> > because a doc and a program are shipped in the same tarball,
> > does this really mean that you need to try to cover them
> > with the same license?
>
> If they're just distributed together in tarball -- if it's
> just "mere aggregation", then probably not, no. However, see
> above. The document might mingle with the source more than
> that. Free music, images, or textures might be integrated
> tightly into a game, for instance.
>
> Remember, the DFCL isn't just for manuals.
I think that the GPL compatibility should be bidirectional.
At the moment, you propose that there should be an option to
treat a DFCL-licensed document as GPLed, so that merging it
with other GPLed stuff (e.g. program code) will not be a
problem.
As the GPL demands that a work derived from a GPLed work is
published under the terms of the GPL (if it is to be published
at all), a game including DFCLed multimedia stuff and GPLed
program code would have to be GPLed. So far so good.
Now, I think it would be great if the game would not only be
GPLed but also DFCLed. The DFCL cannot enforce that, of course,
otherwise it would not be GPL-compatible. But maybe some game
creators would want to do that voluntarily.
Well, can they do that at all? The final work will contain some
GPLed parts, and the GPL propably does not allow to relicense
them under the DFCL. So not the entire work can be DFCLed.
Supposed the DFCL gets a copyleft mechanism that does not
tolerate that parts of the work are only GPLed, the only option
left for the game creator is to drop the DFCL, making the game
as a whole only GPLed.
Maybe this is a bad example, as I'm not sure whether a game is
copyrightable, except for being a composite work. Here is a
better one:
Lets assume there is a well-commented GPLed program, and some
DCFLed documentation. Now, someone wants to add a chapter about
the internals of the program and therefore include some of the
GPLed program source code into the documentation. This is
possible, as the DCFLed work magically switches to GPL. So, the
resulting documentation can be GPLed, as demanded by the GPL.
But can it still be DCFLed in parallel (excluding only the
imported GPLed parts)?
cu,
Thomas
}:o{#
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