On Sat, 16 Mar 2019, Don Armstrong wrote:
On Sat, 16 Mar 2019, Paul Jakma wrote:The code concerned however is explicitly /not/ being distributed under the terms required by the GPL licence, but rather much weaker licences (BSD or MIT/X11, e.g.). Licenses which fail to implement the reciprocal source code publication conditions of the GPL, amongst other things.
Because Debian distributes[1] FRR in compliance with the terms of the GPL, and the terms of the license of the subparts of FRR are compatible with the GPL, Debian is not in violation of the terms of the GPL.
The GPL stipulates that the distributor must "appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice".
FRR deliberately do not so on a number of files, in the ldpd and babeld directories most notably, even where those files do prominently feature notice of another licence (a weaker one lacking the requirements of the GPL).
This is very deliberate, as FRR denies the applicablility of the GPL to those files, even though these files are dependent on the GPL source code for function and comprehension and these files are derived works of the GPL source code, according to legal advice. The FRR project - by their own words - are not distributing this code under the GPL, manifested no least by their refusal to comply with the notification requirement of the GPL.
Non-compliance with conditions stipulated by the GPL licence, on code that may only be distributed in accordance with the GPL licence, is an infringement of copyright.
The termination clause of the GPL applies to entities who are redistributing FRR not to the code base in general; as Debian redistributes in compliance with the GPL (and presumably the FRR project on github does as well), Debian hasn't activated GPL-2 §4.
The FRR project, and associated entities (such as Cumulus Networks, Big Switch Networks, 6WIND, LAbN Consulting, Orange Telecom, the Linux Foundation) have no GPL licence for this code-base.
The Debian project can not magically grant itself a GPL licence for this infringing code, when the FRR project have none to give.
regards, -- Paul Jakma | paul@jakma.org | @pjakma | Key ID: 0xD86BF79464A2FF6A Fortune: Death before dishonor. But neither before breakfast.