Re: Licensing of jeuclid
Julien Puydt <julien.puydt@laposte.net> writes:
> My interpretation of the issue is that if there are two licenses on
> the code, then as long as the necessary DFSG-rights are given, there
> is no problem.
If multiple licenses are granted to the same (part of) a work, then it
matters what the grant actually is.
Both sets of conditions must be satisfied simultaneously (e.g. with
Expat-licensed code in a GPLv2 work)? The recipient's choice of which
license to receive (e.g. “or, at your option, any later version”)?
Something else?
For this reason it's important to know what is the specific grant of
license: what may the recipient do, to what work, under what set of
conditions.
The issue, as I see it, is that there is no clear coherent grant of
license across the work.
Many of the source files specifically grant license “under the Apache
License, version 2.0”. That's clear enough, and makes *those files*
DFSG-free.
But there are other license notices and texts included in the work: GNU
LGPL v2.1, some specific “AMSFonts” conditions, maybe others I haven't
seen. And, as you note, a ‘NOTICE’ file at the top level.
Nothing in particular mentions grant of license *referring to* the
top-level ‘NOTICE’ file. That file itself, though, specifically claims
“JEuclid” as its scope.
But it does so only implicitly, and it could be argued that it's still
not clear what that notice is meant to apply to; its scope may not be
the whole work.
It's also not clear how that interacts with other parts of the work,
under different license grants as mentioned above.
> Notice that upstream seems unreactive since years now, so even though
> I'm also opening a ticket there [3], moving forward not expecting an
> answer seems the most reasonable course of action.
The only way to move forward, in the absence of a clear grant of
license, would be to assume some specific resolution of the current
incoherent nature of what conditions and freedoms are granted.
We should, IMO, be quite conservative about making those assumptions,
because that amounts to second-guessing the intent of the copyright
holders — not only the existing ones, but future ones who may gain
control of those copyrights.
You already know this, but to state it plainly: The obviously superior
option is to get a clear grant of license in writing from the copyright
holders, which specifies what is its scope, what freedoms are granted,
and the complete set of conditions that apply.
--
\ “Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual |
`\ profit without individual responsibility.” —Ambrose Bierce, |
_o__) _The Devil's Dictionary_, 1906 |
Ben Finney
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