Re: A meager copyright. Remotely acceptable?
A clarification on GPL and contributions.
torsdag den 1 april 2010 klockan 17:06 skrev Jesús M. Navarro detta:
> Hi, Mats:
>
> On Thursday 01 April 2010 14:37:56 Mats Erik Andersson wrote:
> > Dear mentors,
> >
> > The RFP reportee himself suggested GPL as the applicable license,
> > which I now see is utterly nonsense. I could use the insights of
> > those better understanding these matters.
> >
> > The only mention of GPL in the entire source archive are found
> > in two specifications for building RPM-packages. Beyond that,
> > the files produced using autotools contain the usual FSF attribution.
> >
>
> The COPYING file obviously states the intention for a BSD-like license. On
> the other hand, GPL on the RPM-build files is not incompatible with that but
> that leaves the question about all the other source files. As long as the
The two GPL-licensed specifications were contributed by other people.
Apart from the files generated by the autotools suite, I find no other
explicit mention of contributed text in the source code itself. There are
in AUTHORS named persons with pointers to functionality they improved,
but apart from a single mention of a single individual in a single C-source
file, the code additions are anonymous.
> author of the COPYING file retains copyright for the whole lot (i.e. has not
> copied anything from other sources), I think the best path would be approach
> the upstream maintainer and ask him to clarify the situation of the other
> copyrigth files. You can even go for the extra mile, once the author's
> position is made clear to offer to patch yourself the files (after all, the
> only thing it would be needed is adding a boilerplate header to all of them).
>
> Without this (IMHO) standard copyright laws are in effect which means you
> can't even touch the non-stated files with a ten foot pole.
>
Do you mean that I am not allowed to patch (using source format 3.0-quilt)
any of the code? At this time I know one compiler warning and some
dubious IPv6-code that I probably would like to fix. The BSD-clause in
COPYING allows modifications, so I do not understand how I should interpret
the "ten foot pole". Please, tell me!
Mats Erik Andersson
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