On 02/13/12 12:58 PM, William Stein wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 3:35 AM, Dr. David Kirkby
<david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
On 02/13/12 11:18 AM, Jason Grout wrote:
On 2/13/12 4:17 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
Since some of packages will not have the "or later version" added into
the license, we can't distribute Sage as GPL 3 or even "GPL 2 or any
later version", since some of the components don't have the "or any
later version".
Which packages are those? I thought we were being really careful to not
include any packages that were GPLv2 only in the base, standard
distribution of Sage?
Or are you just imagining that there probably is such a package?
Thanks,
Jason
First one I find is gfan. This is SPKG.txt:
gfan is GPLv2+.
I know the author of gfan personally; I don't remember for sure, but I
think got him to GPL it in the first place. All he did was take his
code and put the standard GPL "COPYING" file (which has the GPLv2
license in it) in the same directory, and include a LICENSE file that
says:
-------------
deep:src wstein$ more LICENSE
The Gfan software is distributed under the "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC
LICENSE" as described in the file "COPYING".
Ask the author if you want a more reasonable license.
-------------
But currently SPKG.txt and COPYING state version 2 only.
SPKG.txt for Mercurial states
"== License ==
* GNU General Public License version 2, or any later version
"
but the COPYING file does not state "or any later version". Some programs do
(like znpoly), but Mercurial does not. Nor does gfan - despite you say you know
different. Nor does the COPYING file in 'moin', though SPKG.txt says it is
"GPLv2+".
Because the LICENSE file (and code) do not specifically state that the
program is GPLv2, one may use any version of the GPL license (>= 2).
Note, that an author has to add the "or any later version" for it to become
applicable. Unless that is specifically stated, it you can't apply it.
iconv is GPL3 only.
I'm not comfortable with this statement: "IMHO, if you want to be
totally legal, then you should not use Sage." It seems like FUD that
ignores a ton of hard work that we have all done campaigning to get
licenses changed, sometimes choosing a much more difficult path
(regarding which libraries we use) just because of GPL versions, etc.
If you believe it is 100% legal that is fine. But I don't, and nor does Jeroen
Demeyer
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/078c738469cc5bbd
To the best of my knowledge there is not ** ONE SINGLE PACKAGE **
included with Sage that is licensed GPLv2 only.
Well, certainly there seems to be a lot of COPYING files that state they are GPL
version 2, with no mention of the "any later version" the license says one
should put if one wants to apply the license to later releases.
If this is not
actually the case, I really want to know about it. I believe that
Sage is 100% legally distributed and does not violate any copyright
statements at all.
You are welcome to your opinion. I just don't happen to agree with it.
Dave
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