Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
[ Adding Hubert Figuiere (gnote upstream) to CC, note that he's probably not
subscribed ]
Hi Anthony,
On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 09:20:44PM +0100, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> In message <[🔎] 20090408194833.GA5615@thorin>, Robert Millan
> <rmh@aybabtu.com> writes
>>> and a
>>> clear violation of Tomboy's license.
>>
>> Notice license and copyright statements are two separate issues. AFAIK
>> LGPL doesn't explicitly require that a license notice is preserved mixing
>> code with other licenses like the BSD license does, but I could be mistaken.
>>
>> Any advice on this from -legal?
>
> If it's not your code, and the licence does not give you explicit
> permission, then you can't change the licence and shouldn't remove the
> licence note.
>
> Note that the GPLs fall in this category!
>
> The way you "change the licence" with this sort of code is by licencing
> your code with a compatible licence. The licence for the resulting
> combined work is the "Venn Intersect" of the two licences. If there's no
> intersect, then you can't distribute.
Does this apply on a per-file basis? It seems we have three different
situations:
a- old file has no copyright/license statement, and a new
copyright/license statement (for Hubert / GPLv3+) was added.
b- old file has a copyright/license statement, which is left
verbatim since the file wasn't modified (or only minimally).
c- old file has a copyright/license statement, the new file adds
its own GPLv3+ header and BOTH copyright lines (but not the
LGPLv2.1 header).
Is any of these at fault? You're saying that C is incorrect because it
should include both license headers (and not just both copyright lines)?
Is A also at fault because it should say explicitly that the copyright
only covers Hubert's changes (even if noone else bothered to assert their
copyrights)?
> For an example, if a program has three authors, one of whom uses BSD,
> the second uses "LGPL 2.1 or later" and the third uses "GPL 3" then the
> Venn Intersect is GPL 3, which is the licence that applies to the work
> as a whole. However, any recipient is at full liberty to strip out parts
> of the work, and use whatever licence the author granted.
Yeah, I understand the combined result is GPLv3; the only doubt I have is
whether it's necessary to explicitly mention each license.
If it's not, is there anything else we should take care of?
Thanks
--
Robert Millan
The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
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