Re: FRR package in Debian violates the GPL licence
On Tue, 19 Mar 2019, Ole Streicher wrote:
In GPLv2, section 1 allows the distribution of unmodified source code,
if the license information is distributed unmodified as well.
Which unmodified GPL source code do they distribute without the
licensing information?
They are distributing files which were created outwith of Quagga, which
explicitly refer to, make use of and rely upon facilities provided by
GPL code obtained from Quagga (which obtained code from GNU Zebra
before it).
I've given some examples of such files, and some of the GPL facilities
they use, see previous mail.
Those files are derived works of the GPL code obtained from Quagga,
according to legal advice. Those files may only be distributed under the
terms of the GPL.
The Quagga project, and the FRR project as well, contain files with a
number of different licences, and one must look at the specific file to
determine the applicable licence(s). It is a file-scoped project with
respect to copyright notices.
To be compliant with the GPL, these files are required by the GPL to
have the appropriate copyright notices, according to legal advice.
They do not.
This is no bug or oversight - it is very deliberate, as the FRR people
have repeatedly made clear (and are adamant) that they are not
distributing these files under the GPL.
regards,
--
Paul Jakma | paul@jakma.org | @pjakma | Key ID: 0xD86BF79464A2FF6A
Fortune:
If Nvidia would like to pay me as much as Microsoft is paid for driver
certification then I might be able to find the time
- Alan Cox on linux-kernel
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