On Sat, 24 Nov 2012 00:28:25 +0100 Alexander Toresson wrote: > Hello! Hi, > > One file of a software (software A) I'm working on packaging was > originally taken from another project (software B), and had a public > domain license. Strictly speaking, "public domain" is not a license: it is actually the state of not being copyrighted. Please take a look at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PublicDomain or possibly at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain > Then a contributor of software A modified it. The main license of > software A is GPL-2+. There's no copyright or license statement in the > file itself, but I've had to hunt it down from the readme of software > B. > Do I assume that the changes of the contributor are GPL-2+, or public > domain? I am not sure... I tend to think that, since the contributor was contributing to a work which is released under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 or later (software A), he or she was supposed to license his or her contribution under GPL-compatible terms, such as, for instance, the GNU GPL itself. But, of course, an explicit permission notice would have helped a lot in clarifying the contributor's intent... Can you get in touch with this contributor and ask him or her? Any GPL-compatible license would be OK and should not pose major issues to software A... > Can different parts of a source file have different licenses? I personally think that this is possible, although a bit tricky (it would require clear permission notices and explanations about which parts are under which license...). Bye. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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