Re: Acknowledgment clause in GPL code?

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Olive <olive001@tele2allin.be> writes:

> There is the objection that this is contradictory: it may be true;
> but even if so; jurisdiction does not reject a contradictory license
> as a whole;

Whether a jurisdiction does or does not reject the license isn't at
issue. At issue is whether Debian may redistribute the work is free
software, and whether Debian may redistribute the work at all.

> just the contradictory points can be rejected/interpreted, so as
> long as the additional requirements doesn't make the software non
> free I do not understand why this may cause the software not
> redistribuable.

The GPL specifically addresses this. GPL section 7 says::

    [...] If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously
    your obligations under this License and any other pertinent
    obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the
    Program at all.

> There is also the objection about forbiding additional requirement in
> the GPL; but Debian (or the redistributor) doen't put additional
> requirement to the GPL (and in fact it does not put any requirement at
> all); it is the copyright holder who do so; and he is not bound by the
> GPL. So I do not see how Debian would violate the license simply by
> redistributing the software.

GPL section 6 says::

    [...] You may not impose any further restrictions on the
    recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.

Copyright law reserves certain acts, including modification and
redistribution, to the copyright holder. The Debian project only has
permission to redistribute under terms as granted explicitly by the
copyright holder in a license grant.

Thus, if a work is received by the Debian project under "GPL plus
extra terms", then, if those extra terms place additional restrictions
beyond the GPL, Debian cannot satisfy both those terms and the terms
of the GPL section 6; and thus, under section 7, may not redistribute
the work at all.

-- 
 \         "I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, |
  `\      when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still |
_o__)                             more complicated."  -- Paul Anderson |
Ben Finney