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Re: FRR package in Debian violates the GPL licence



Hi,

Il 18/03/19 16:45, Paul Jakma ha scritto:
> If code which is written to depend explicitly and heavily on the APIs
> and frameworks provided by GPL is /not/ considered subject to the GPL,
> but 'mere' 'aggregration', one would wonder why the LGPL would ever have
> been drafted. One would wonder why readline was ever an issue for the
> BSDs. etc., etc.

My guess is that LGPL was introduced to allow LGPL libraries to be
linked by software licensed under more restrictive licenses. There is no
need for special provisions when linking GPL software with more liberal
licenses, in my understanding of the things (and in basically every use
case I've always heard about).

> Your legal analysis is not inline with formal legal advice given by
> qualified solicitors, who have examined this issue. That advice is that
> the code concerned is deriving of the GPL code.

As far as I know, the formal legal advice you received is not in line
with how maybe half of the free software ecosystem works. I think I have
seen MIT/BSD pieces of code in most of the GPL projects I have looked into.

> I will stick with the views of those qualified solicitors, over the view
> of a software engineer, at least on legal matters.

Absolutely sensible. Then why are you asking on a mailing list of
programmers? Maybe asking on a mailing list of qualified solicitors
would give you more satisfaction.

Cheers, Giovanni.
-- 
Giovanni Mascellani <g.mascellani@gmail.com>
Postdoc researcher - Université Libre de Bruxelles

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