inquery about "GPL with commercial exception"

[IOhannes m zmölnig (Debian/GNU)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 2015-10-08 16:32, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> 
> Anyway, further discussing the matter won't clarify it much. The
> clear result, /methinks, is that we all agree this is DFSG-unfree.
> Whether it is distributable in non-free... Is subject to
> discussion.

it's rather obvious that the license in DFSG-unfree, but the exact
purpose of my inquery was to check whether the package would be
distributable in non-free.

in the meantime i was heaving contact with upstream, and here's what
they basically say:

since changing license (even if it is just changing the license name,
without altering the actual terms) requires all authors to accept, and
most project members can only commit little time to the project these
days, they have not tackled the problem so far.
also, they figure that a license "GPL+exceptions" is much easier for
their audience to *understand* (given that they are already familiar
with the GPL, they only have to parse and understand the additional
exceptions) than a new license (even if it is just changing the
license name, without altering the actual terms).
which all in all keeps their motivation small, to even start a
discussion on that topic (again; they've been through that before).

after that i suggested that
- - they could dual-license the work under "GPL+exceptions" (to spare
their happy audience) and under a "Linux Sampler License" (which would
be the same but under a different name)
- - i could contact the remaining authors myself to get their agreement
for this.
- - (but only if they are fine with that).

that was 1 week ago and i haven't received any further answer.
i'm under the impression that i will not receive any more answer on
this topic from their side.

which throws us back to the question whether software under that
license is distributable (in non-free) at or not.


fgmasr
IOhannes

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2

iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWFoZrAAoJELZQGcR/ejb4YX0P/27mb+/gUdat4uPtxjs9yDbi
4B73MwH0yn1ChR1TN2+0NPuSEY7XzcwlDxS8a2TgtGDMKHx3MefvgCc/SG5YbINI
ZGf/q+FwCmCnSNmYbeX4naKurrXej5grT/Tw/nZH2MgH1ov2MJRl0l6aBaVbVHOD
+qgSbI1K0Ev3T/8512gHFh9JZllNGphFzrB4BrPjEyMTDekDXr0CSAiekB/DJWRn
8Sj2QR38CEB+mzNO4VoPHZ4+EVVtiAu2S6rCnTu9oa4FMu1rirF7tA8Kt+iFKmkY
njbGtHUFi3kpJ/NIlXTyMvPR5dlOPBYH+k9kl/wjwB+/sPSY18eaLct5WDaW/Bn/
mfz8rRRIAFSE9PF6Ge3PR4hPPSX+u8g5aPLCOAOia1dmggJZiMStQf9C9uklwqbD
udUmu7ET4W2nG11gfbk3i+PIvA4saJDn1CJeUGtRiRpG1YvlEQc2kqpUTngMLa77
ifklhCmJ8ObJji1kXQ6XhpJvqdhq+hsBhA/pBSZxAeqyezsFrnOGa27BcsH0rKK6
/8uBP5Vmn8LmNkvG3bJcDvJzcn2wdcZk5ACe8CJaSjfsjI5b44iMyrbKJlFnxjq/
jiJ/6X702dj06TVsJn2PKmOk/ZEuQk4e8HiVM49VyATolPwM/ullq3fuTGdEnvas
Uw3K4XoWS4jmOiiZhWvs
=Lbll
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----