On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Anthony <abasta...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hmm, I thought it was just the opposite -- people like MIT/BSD because they > don't place any restrictions on how you license a modified/derived work. So, > you can take an MIT/BSD licensed program, modify/combine it, and then > release the modified/combined version as LGPL, GPL, or even closed source.
MIT does not permit that, as far as I can tell. "to deal in the Software without restriction", which invalidates your claim because "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software." Closed-source means restriction, and so does GPL. So MIT is not compatible. Afaik, GPL doesn't consider BSD as GPL-compatible, either. > You can't go the other way, though (i.e., you can't modify/combine a > GPL/LGPL program and release it as MIT/BSD). The GNU website lists both the > modified BSD and the MIT (Expat) licenses as GPL-compatible > (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html). Yes, in a way they are. MIT is even viral, like GPL. > If this isn't the case, then web2py would already be in violation of various > contrib licenses, no? Yes. > Yes, I think that's right (if you just "point" to the source rather than > actually include it, you might have to make sure you point to the originally > distributed version, not just the current version at web2py.com). We might > simplify this by (a) including a link to the appropriate source version That won't do. According to GNU, you have to host the sources yourself, and ensure that it is available at least 3 years after you've stopped distributing the binaries. I think there is a loophole for this in v2, though, but v3 definitely plugged it. The Arch linux community was forced to start hosting the entire corpus of sources they were building on to get into compliance. > right in the license document of the binary version, or (b) including a zip > file with the source right in the binary version -- so any distribution of > the binary version would automatically satisfy the GPL/LGPL license without > any further effort by the developer/distributor. That's reasonable, yeah. > Are you saying yes, it's more confusing? Whether or not it's confusing, I > think it may be less confusing than the current license because it removes > one of the exceptions (for web2py applications) by switching to the LGPL. If According to GNU, it does not. So an exception is the best solution. A more hussle-free option could be offered as a second license, whether for pay or free of charge, although I think for-pay would just be being fair to the project. > we can also remove the binary distribution exception (and rely on the > GPL/LGPL provision for binary distribution), it would become simpler still. > I guess the only issue is whether people would readily understand that the > LGPL wouldn't apply to web2py apps and would allow binary distribution -- > you have to read through the license carefully to figure that out (unless > you're already familiar with the LGPL). So, if we switch to LGPL, it would > probably be worth pointing this out in a FAQ, and maybe even including an > explanation with the license, just so it's very clear what is permitted. I think there need not be any provisions for using or distributing web2py itself except those that are offered by the GPL. In fact, I'd go as far as to make web2py AGPL isntead. The problem was this forced app developers to develop under GPL. And that's what the exception is about. GPL does NOT prevent you from distributing binary-only web2py with your proprietary binary-only app as long as you comply to GPL for the web2py part. Your app is GPL-free anyway. I just don't understand why you insist that closed-source web2py should be allowed. I don't think it should be, and Massimo has also stated to that effect. -- Branko Vukelić bg.bra...@gmail.com stu...@brankovukelic.com Check out my blog: http://www.brankovukelic.com/ Check out my portfolio: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxbunny/ Registered Linux user #438078 (http://counter.li.org/) I hang out on identi.ca: http://identi.ca/foxbunny Gimp Brushmakers Guild http://bit.ly/gbg-group
