Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message 9f4091d0c9afc9ede2ecc519bd6830bb.chere...@mccme.ru, 
Alexander Cherepanov chere...@mccme.ru writes

Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)


Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.


In which case, you HAVE altered my work. You've removed part of it, 
namely the licence grant.


Oh - and that probably is a very definite copyright violation :-) I 
didn't grant you a licence to do that, I granted you a licence to alter 
the program :-)


And as someone else in this thread said, if they get one copy via one 
route that is GPL, and another via another route that is BSD, they think 
they can apply either licence to either copy. This is a very vague area.


But as far as I am concerned, legal niceties aside, if I dual-licence my 
work (such as, let's say, making it GPL v2+), if you strip off the v2 
and change it to v3+ you are misrepresenting me to my users, and you are 
stripping my users of the rights I granted them. Doesn't the GPL 2 
itself say you mustn't impose further restrictions? What is removing 
the option to use v2, if not an unpermitted further restriction? While 
this may be a legal grey area, it isn't a grey moral area - it's just 
unacceptable.


Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anth...@thewolery.demon.co.uk


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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message 9f4091d0c9afc9ede2ecc519bd6830bb.chere...@mccme.ru, 
Alexander Cherepanov chere...@mccme.ru writes

Basically, you can choose which licence you want to apply to YOU. But
you pass on my package as a whole (including my permission to choose
which licence). So that's where your recipients get the same choices you
got.


I pass your code and GPLv3, there is no requirement to pass your full
license grant.


Just spotted something important :-)

WITHOUT MY COPYING FILE your recipient has no evidence that the GPLv3 
bears any relevance to my code. You've just stripped all licencing from 
my code and that MOST DEFINITELY IS a pretty blatant GPL violation!


So to sum up, the GPL (whatever variant) is meaningless on its own. 
Passing the code on without my licencing grant is a GPL violation. And 
the GPL does NOT give you permission to change my grant.


My grant does give you the right to choose which licence applies to YOU. 
In fact, as I said elsewhere, you HAVE TO CHOOSE A SPECIFIC licence to 
apply to you. If you choosing a specific licence stripped your 
recipients' right to choose which licence applied to them, there would 
be no point to the or any later version wording because that would be 
invalid for any recipient beyond the first person to get it direct from 
the copyright holder.


Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anth...@thewolery.demon.co.uk


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