Re: Is the "Simple Library Usage License" DFSG-free?
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 03:35:02PM +0100, Dominique Belhachemi wrote:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Simple Library Usage License
> Version 1, Nov 6 2005
>
> Copyright (c) 2005 Gordon Kindlmann
>
> Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
> license document, but changing it is not allowed.
>
> SIMPLE LIBRARY USAGE LICENSE
> TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
>
> This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) as
> published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the
> License, or (at your option) any later version.
[...]
Base license is LGPL.
> EXCEPTION NOTICE
>
> 1. As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give
> permission for additional uses of the text contained in this release
> of the library as licensed under the Simple Library Usage License,
> applying either version 1 of the License, or (at your option) any
> later version of the License as published by the copyright holders of
> version 1 of the License document.
Exceptions are permissions in addition to LGPL and so shouldn't impinge
on the DFSG freeness of the base license.
> 2. The exception is that you may combine or link a "work that uses the
> Library" (as defined by the LGPL) with the Library to produce a work
> containing portions of the Library in binary form, and distribute that
> work under terms of your choice, provided that:
[...]
The key phrase here is "and distribute that work under terms of your
choice". It only applies when you don't want to conform to LGPL in
derived works and is irrelevant in the (DFSG free) LGPL case.
> 3. If you copy code from files distributed under the terms of the GNU
> General Public License or the GNU Lesser General Public License into a
> copy of this library, as this license permits, the exception does not
> apply to the code that you add in this way. To avoid misleading
> anyone as to the status of such modified files, you must delete this
> exception notice from such code and/or adjust the licensing conditions
> notice accordingly.
You may not violate the license of pure GPL or LGPL code you include.
The requirement to remove the exceptions from the resulting work's
license is a given anyway.
> 4. If you write modifications of your own for this library, it is your
> choice whether to permit this exception to apply to your
> modifications. If you do not wish that, you must delete the exception
> notice from such code and/or adjust the licensing conditions notice
> accordingly.
You are free to contribute changes under LGPL with or without the
exceptions. If you don't want the exceptions, don't put them in the
license.
Basically points 3 and 4 are just reminders to do things you'd have to
do anyway. As such, they wouldn't have needed to be part of the license
but they don't hurt there either.
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