On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:51:55 +0100 Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 07:42:05PM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: > > However, I think you should clarify what you mean by "dual-licensing". > > > > "Dual-licensing" is usually intended to mean that both licenses are > > being offered and the recipient of the work may choose either one, > > according to his/her own preferences. > > That is what I meant, yes. Thanks for clarifying. > (TBH, is also the only meaning of > "dual-licensing" I'm aware of.) It's the usual meaning, indeed, but... one may never be sure, especially in a situation where dual-licensing seems to be an over-complicated way to license under the plain Expat/MIT! > > > If this is what you mean, then it should be noted that "dual-licensed > > under Expat/MIT and GPLv2+" is effectively equivalent to "licensed > > under the Expat/MIT", since the Expat license's permissions are a > > superset of GPLv2+ license's ones, and Expat license's restrictions > > are a subset of GPLv2+ license's ones. > > You're quite right (at least, under most interpretations of the two > licenses; cause with these things you really never know...). As in > other cases of dual MIT/GPL licensing, the point is being clear in the > fact that recipient can choose both . So that if they know very little > about licenses, but they know they like (or can use) one of the two in a > specific context, they will be happy without having to know explicitly > about license compatibility. Well, the Expat/MIT license is compatible with countless other licenses. Following the same reasoning, one could argue that the Debian official web site should be explicitly multiple-licensed under all of them! I would disagree, but, well, I am not really convinced about the Expat/GPL dual-license, either... > > You might argue that this kind of "communication" precaution is > pointless for material such as www.d.o content, but after all ... why > not? I don't see it as confusing. I think it would make a number of people (wrongly) think that the Debian Project decision-makers know very little about licenses... > After all, if someone has to object > to this choice on the basis that it is too liberal, they will do the > same even if we present it as "MIT/Expat" only. This is certainly true, but it was not my point. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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