Permission of "all other copyright holders" as in developers of all packages that depend on 'foo'?
Russ Sent from my iPhone > On Nov 6, 2016, at 9:31 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.dun...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On 06/11/2016 4:11 AM, Lenth, Russell V wrote: >> A correction and clarification... >> >> It is MY package's GPL-2 license that is being violated by the other package >> -- not its GPL-3 license. >> >> Let me lay it out with some generic names: >> * The 'foo' package specifies a GPL-2 license >> * The 'bar' package depends on 'foo', but specifies a GPL-3 license. That >> violates foo's GPL-2 license. >> >> More details: >> * 'foo' provides a particular type of analysis embodied in a function named >> 'manchoo', >> and provides methods for various classes. >> * 'bar' provides an S3 method for 'manchoo', via statements like this in >> its NAMESPACE file: >> importFrom(foo, manchoo) >> S3method(manchoo, bar) >> * The developer of 'foo' welcomes such expanded availability of 'manchoo' >> methods. >> >> So there seem to be two ways to resolve this: >> 1. The developer of 'foo' changes its license to GPL-3 (does that indeed >> resolve the license issue?) >> -- OR -- >> 2. The developer of 'bar' removes the dependency on 'foo', by not importing >> 'manchoo' or its >> S3method; instead, it simply exports the function 'manchoo.bar' and >> moves 'foo' to Suggests > > And a third way is for the developer of 'bar' to allow it to be dual licensed > as GPL 2 or 3, or something else more permissive than GPL 3. They may not be > able to do that if they are not the sole copyright holder, just as you won't > be able to do 1 without the permission of all other copyright holders. > > Duncan Murdoch > > >> >> Thanks for any suggestions >> >> Russ >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Lenth, Russell V >> Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2016 9:28 PM >> To: 'r-package-devel@r-project.org' <r-package-devel@r-project.org> >> Subject: Relicense to GPL-3? >> >> Dear all, >> >> I received an email from a user telling me that another package that depends >> on my package is licensed GPL(>=3), whereas mine is licensed GPL-2; and that >> therefore, the other package is in violation of its GPL-3 license. This >> apparently causes an issue with the Debian packaging system, throwing that >> other package into the "unstable" category. >> >> Moreover, the correspondent asks me if I would consider changing the license >> for my package. To what is not specified, but I guess it would be to GPL-3. >> >> I don't really understand why this isn't the other developer's problem and >> not mine. But on the other hand, I don't want to cause problems for others. >> The licensing stuff is hard for me to understand - in large part because of >> low motivation to dig into it; I really would rather think about providing >> better code and features than all sorts of legal gobble-de-gook. >> Nonetheless, I guess this stuff is important to some people (e.g., Debian) >> so I suppose I had better get it right. >> >> My decision to put GPL-2 in the first place was primarily expedience: it >> seemed like what people wanted. So is GPL-3 "better"? Do I risk anything by >> changing it? Do I risk anything by not changing it? How much does it matter, >> really? >> >> Thanks >> >> Russ >> >> Russell V. Lenth - Professor Emeritus >> Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science The University of Iowa - >> Iowa City, IA 52242 USA Voice (319)335-0712 (Dept. office) - FAX >> (319)335-3017 >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel >> > ______________________________________________ R-package-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
