reopen 498857 reopen 498477 thanks OoO En cette nuit nuageuse du vendredi 19 septembre 2008, vers 00:53, Thomas Viehmann <tv@beamnet.de> disait : > Hi Vincent, > thanks for looking into licensing issues in Debian. > How exactly is the python license GPL-incompatible? > If you scroll down a screen or two on the license[1] and move your > attention to the right column, you will find the assertion that all > recent versions of python have a GPL-compatible license, even indicating > where the FSF's opinion differs from the python copyright holders. > In particular, all python versions from oldstable onwards are > undisputedly GPL-compatible. Hi Thomas! I did not say that python license is GPL-incompatible. There are two problems: - the fact that readline.so module is linked to GNU Readline is not mentioned in debian/copyright where it should because if the user uses this module in some non-GPL work and distribute it, it will break GPL because GNU Readline is GPL. - _ssl.so is linked with OpenSSL and hence is incompatible with GPL without an exception that is not granted in GNU Readline. Therefore, a program cannot be linked to both readline.so and _ssl.so. GPL compatibility only says that you can mix Python code with GPL code and get a valid GPL code (first footnote in debian/copyright highlights the meaning of "GPL compatible"). Python license is GPL compatible however not every piece of Python is licensed under Python license. debian/copyright contains some exceptions. readline.so is another exception that should be noted in debian/copyright. The rest of the world don't believe there is no problem with this. Apple removed GNU Readline of its Python and replaced it with editline (which causes some incompatibilities). About the second problem, as both readline.so and _ssl.so are optional module, I am not really sure if this is a serious problem or if a note could be dropped in debian/copyright about the fact that a program using both _ssl.so and readline.so cannot be distributed. I am putting debian-legal@ in copy to those bugs to get some additional insights on this matter. I am not a lawyer. -- I WILL NOT AIM FOR THE HEAD I WILL NOT AIM FOR THE HEAD I WILL NOT AIM FOR THE HEAD -+- Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 8F13
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