[Babel-users] Babeld merged with GPL headers against copyright holders' wishes

[Paul Jakma]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Paul Jakma has added GPL headers to the babeld code that he has merged 
> into Quagga.  This was done against the wishes of Matthieu Boutier and 
> myself, the main two authors of this code, and without the knowledge of 
> the other authors.  Note that Paul did not simply ask us to add GPL 
> headers as a condition for inclusion into Quagga; he added the headers 
> himself, without asking us for permission.

I didn't do this off my own bat. I did this on behalf of the maintainers, 
who collectively decided on this after we:

a) were asked to merge babeld by yourself

b) sought legal advice from SFLC

c) extensively discussed what options were open to us (one such option
    was to not merge)

We asked SFLC whether we could distribute an MIT/X11 source-base that made 
use of a GPL library (which we, the maintainers, do not have exclusive 
copyright over - indeed, far from). We did not receive clear advice that 
we could. Nor are we aware of advice or clear custom elsewhere that would 
allow us.

We are obliged to follow the licensing terms stipulated by **all** the 
copyright holders (i.e. not just the babeld authors), if we wish to 
distribute the code without fear of legal risks. This means we have to 
stick to the the conjunction of all applicable licensing terms, which 
appears to include the GPL in this case.

We have however tried to make it clear to any future contributors that we 
want them to licence back any relevant changes to you under MIT/X11, so 
that you can apply them to the non-GPL-library-calling standalone babeld.

Further, you were consulted in advance about this. I asked you on IRC and 
I emailed you about it. You clearly indicated, on several ocassions I 
think, that you did not care to be involved in discussions about 
licensing. You indicated that you had chosen MIT/X11 for babeld precisely 
for that reason.

We have followed the SFLC guidelines on combining code that is a potential 
mix of GPL and more permissive licences.

We were left in a very difficult position. We've done the best we can for 
the project.

The initial import commit is at:

   http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=quagga.git;a=commit;h=57345

The babeld/LICENCE file we committed is at:

   http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=quagga.git;a=blob;f=babeld/LICENCE

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma  paul at jakma.org  twitter: @pjakma  PGP: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
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