samba license change

[Les Mikesell]

Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> 
> IANAL, but IMHO this could be interpreted as a license violation of
> the gplv3 samba distributed with GPLv2 foo.rpm that links against it.
> 
> (of course one could argue foo is not really derived from gplv3 samba
> since it has been built against gplv2 samba, but gplv3 samba+gplv2 foo
> is certainly derived from gplv3 samba, and that's what we'd be
> distributing)

I think there is a very good argument, going back to the FSF opinion on 
  the gmp vs, fgmp libraries, that as long as a working alternative 
library exists, code linking to one of those versions can't be 
considered a derivative of it in the copyright sense.

> IMHO the original message I was responding to ("Thanks god we don't
> have automated rebuilds") is dead wrong. The version against which
> code was build or rebuild does not matter overmuch. The version we
> distribute linking binaries with does.

If you have the right to distribute each component separately and the 
existence of a usable gplv2 copy prevents things that happen to link to 
the gplv3 version from being considered a derivative work, what's the 
problem -  at least until changes make the libraries incompatible?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com