[Debichem-devel] ELPA license and packaging

[Volker Blum]

Dear Michael Banck,

Thank you so much for following up.

First, I am not a legal expert and can not simply speak for the whole of the ELPA consortium.

... but I know what the intent of that modification was. You are right, the concern was that third parties could unilaterally take the code and refuse to license modifications in a form that is compatible with the original license.

I am not quite sure how our modification would break compatibility with GPL, though?

Thanks also for offering a way out.

How would distribution under the original LGPLv3 solve that problem? Does that no longer contain the clause that anyone else can redistribute their changes GPL-only - or would that simply reinstate the clause in question?

Thanks and best wishes
Volker Blum

PS - you should have received another message from the ELPA forum that approved your access. It was sent 9 minutes after the registration. Are you sure it did not arrive?

On Nov 3, 2012, at 3:32 PM, Michael Banck wrote:

> Dear ELPA maintainers,
> 
> in order to package the ELPA library for the Debian/Ubuntu
> distributions, we have taken a look at the license and believe there are
> some issues to be discussed.
> 
> To our knowledge, this is the copyright statement:
> 
> |Copyright of the original code rests with the authors inside the ELPA
> |consortium. The copyright of any additional modifications shall rest
> |with their original authors, but shall adhere to the licensing terms
> |set forth below.
> 
> |The code is distributed under ALMOST all of the the terms of the GNU
> |Lesser General Public License version 3 (LGPL). The full text
> |can be found in the file "lgpl.txt" in this repository. "lgpl.txt"
> |makes reference to the GPL v3, which can also be found in this
> |repository ("gpl.txt").
> 
> |While we are not allowed to alter the license texts as written in those 
> |files, IN ADDITION our own license prescribes two important
> |modifications / clarifications to the original lgpl.txt:
> 
> |- In point 2., clause b) - stating that that you may redistribute
> |  under the terms of the plain GNU GPL - shall NOT apply. In other
> |  words, if you redistribute, you MUST keep the additional permissions
> |  of the LGPL v3 in place.
> 
> Please note that it is our understanding that this clause is designed to
> establish license compatibility with the GPL.  In other words, removing 
> this clause makes the ELPA license incompatible with the GPL and
> therefore the ELPA library unable to be used/distributed by GPL
> projects.
> 
> Is this the goal of the ELPA project?  Is your concern that 3rd party
> projects might distribute modifications to the ELPA library under the
> GPL only, thereby making it impossible to incorporate these changes into
> your source tree? 
> 
> |- If you redistribute, you must redistribute under the terms of the
> |  LGPL version specified here. Using later or earlier versions
> |  published by anyone except the ELPA copyright holders is
> |  not allowed. 
> 
> By simply stating that the ELPA library is under the LGPLv3 (thereby
> ommitting the "or later" clause"), you could remove this additional
> clause in our opinion.  Disregarding the above issue for the moment, the
> easiest way would be to add the standard copyright boilerplate at the
> top of each source file:
> 
> | This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
> | modify it under the terms of version 3 of the GNU Lesser General
> | Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.
> 
> | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
> | GNU General Public License for more details.
> 	
> | You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
> | License along with this program.  If not, see
> | <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
> 
> However, please note that the FSF has given their promise that further
> versions of the LGPL will be in the same spirit as the LGPLv3, and that
> by restricting ELPA to LGPLv3 only, you will make it impossible to
> combine ELPA with open source projects using later versions of the LGPL
> (and GPL, but see above for that).
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Michael
> 
> PS: I have applied for access to the git repository, but have not heard
> back yet.  I guess it takes a while to process the requests?

--------------------------------------------------
Dr. Volker Blum
Fritz-Haber-Institut der MPG
Abteilung Theorie
Faradayweg 4-6
D-14195 Berlin, Germany
phone +49 30 8413 4846
fax +49 30 8413 4701
blum at fhi-berlin.mpg.de
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