Bug#754441: GMastermind Relicensing

[Riccardo Mottola <rm@gnu.org>]

Hi Riley,


thanks for inquirying. I am not the original author of GMastermind, thus 
I cannot "relicense" it, if you need that explicit statement, you need 
to ask Marko Riedel. I see you put it in CC, I do not know if that email 
address is current though. We just got permissions to incorporate 
GMastermind in GAP.

I think the original author licensed it under GPLv2+. The README file is 
misleading and probably written in haste. Not only the header files 
explicitely say "or later", but also the COPYING is the full GPL v2 or 
later statement.
The README file says to refer to "gpl.txt", this is probably inaccurate 
and COPYING was intended. I would say that the original intentions are 
pretty clear.

Just in the case, I corrected the README file and also updated COPYING 
to the current GPL v2+ file from fsf, it had even the old FSF address.
Perhaps that statement should be removed totally and just COPYING should 
be included.

Riccardo

Riley Baird wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently packaging GMastermind for Debian. In the process, it has
> been discovered that, according to a technical reading of the README,
> GMastermind is licensed under GPL-2 only (i.e. without "or, at your
> option, any later version").
>
> However, according to the headers on the source files, it would appear
> that the intention was to license under GPL-2 or any later version.
>
> If you are fine with releasing your contributions under GPL-2+, please
> copy the following statement, fill in your name and send it to the email
> addresses below. (If not, then please send a message anyway so we know.)
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I, <YOUR NAME>, irrevocably give permission to use, redistribute, modify
> and to distribute modified copies of any and all of my contributions to
> the program "GMastermind" under the terms of the GNU General Public
> License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2
> of the License, or (should anyone choose to do so) any later version.
>
> No warranty, not even the implied warranties of merchantability or
> fitness for a particular purpose, is given by this license grant.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Please send this statement to the following email addresses:
> BM-2cVqnDuYbAU5do2DfJTrN7ZbAJ246S4Xix@bitmessage.ch
> 754441@bugs.debian.org
> pkg-gnustep-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org
> gap-dev-discuss@nongnu.org
>
> NOTE: If you don't want to be bothered by licensing issues again, send
> the following statement in instead.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I, <YOUR NAME>, release my contributions to the program "GMastermind"
> into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
>
> In some countries, this may not be legally possible; if so:
>
> I grant anyone the right to use this my contributions to the program
> "GMastermind" for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such
> conditions are required by law.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Riley Baird