Re: License Conflict in slmodem-2.9.5
Ben Reser <ben@reser.org> writes:
> There is a license conflict that technically prohibits the distribution
> of your software. Most of your code contains a non-copyleft but
> permissive license. However, modem_at.c carries a GPL license.
>
> This in itself is not a huge problem. Your license is substantially
> similar to other licenses that the FSF says are GPL compatible (e.g. the
> ZPL or the Cryptix General License).
>
> The inclusion of the GPL licensed file triggers the requirements of
> section 2b of the GPL, which requires that the entire work be GPL'd.
This is not *quite* true. It requires that the combined work be
distributed under the terms of the GPL, which introduces another
option for them.
> As I said before your license is compatible with the GPL so this on a
> cursory review wouldn't be a problem.
>
> However, you do not include source for the dsplibs.o or the amrlibs.o
> file. This conflicts with section 3 of the GPL that requires the source
> code be made available.
This part is accurate.
> Solutions to the problem are as follows:
>
> 1) License all files under the GPL and include source for the two object
> files.
Simply providing the source for the two object files would be
sufficient to comply with the GPL. That's what GPL-compatible means.
This is the other option I mentioned: they need change no licenses,
merely include the source code.
> 2) Change the license on modem_at.c. How you do this depends upon to
> what degree you own the copyright to this code.
>
> a) You have complete copyright to the code and remove the GPL license
> replacing it with your existing license. Alternatively, you could
> dual license (i.e. say you can use either your license or the GPL).
> Both of these are essentially the same as your license is GPL
> compatible anyway.
No. One of these is a copyleft, the other is not.
> b) You do not have complete copyright and adapted the code from a GPL
> source. In which case you are violating that persons copyright as
> you are not including any copyright indicating that. I suspect
> due to the lack of the copyright notice for something like that
> that this isn't the case. However, if it is you would need to
> get the permission to relicense the code under your license or
> rewrite the code from scratch.
>
> I believe this conflict is relatively easy to resolve. I anticipate you
> can do 2a and continue on.
>
> I'm also CC'ing debian-legal on this as they distribute your code in the
> sl-modem-daemon package. The package is currently in non-free. Doing 1
> would result in it being able to move to free (unless someone else sees
> another problem). However, until 2 is done I'd suspect Debian is going
> to have to remove the package.
I'm not a Debian Developer (yet), but thanks for the heads-up.
> Additionally, there are other files (kernel-ver.c, all the files in
> patches and scripts) which do not contain any license at all. Appropriate
> copyright notices should be added to them. The debian startup script
> appears to have been contributed by a 3rd party so you'd need to contact
> that individual to get the appropriate copyright notice. And the ALSA
> patches would need to be GPL licensed in order to be applied and used.
> It may be useful to include a COPYING file that applies your license to
> any file that doesn't say otherwise within its contents.
>
> If you have any questions about this please let me know. I'll be more
> than happy to spend some time with you explaining the problems and
> working with you to reach a resolution to this licensing problem.
>
> --
> Ben Reser <ben@reser.org>
> http://ben.reser.org
>
> "Conscience is the inner voice which warns us somebody may be looking."
> - H.L. Mencken
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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