[Fedora-legal-list] Please define "effective license" (for the love of consistency)

Michael Schwendt mschwendt at gmail.com
Sun Dec 13 12:22:36 UTC 2009


On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:45:11 -0800, Julius wrote:

> ps.  My email is more of a personal tangential thought I'm having and
> not really relevant to Orcan's original questions since it doesn't
> have any implications for what to put in the RPM license tag!

Still, what to put in the "License:" tag has implications with
regard to the compatibility of the programs. It is especially important
for the "A may use B" relation which is relevant when linking program A
with library B.

And when _copying_ code from program A to program B, proper license
conversion ought to be applied in the program's source code as explained
in the appendix of the license files, and e.g. following the compatibility
matrix and other Q&A in the FSF's GPL FAQ:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html

You cannot hide "GPLv2 only" files in a GPLv2+ library, for example, and
use this with a GPLv3 program. Once more, conversion of licenses is not
implicit or automatic. Even if we say our "License:" tags are not legally
binding, it is not us to override the actual licensing that is applied to
a program in the source files and in accompanying documentation. "GPLv2
only" and LGPL files _may_ be converted to apply the GPLv2+, but somebody
needs to do that. Explicitly. And as explained in the appendix to the
license terms.

Related to Orcan's initial post, the software developer has replied to
me. The program is supposed to apply the "GPLv2 only" and any GPLv2+ and
LGPL references are not supposed to be there. The author also pointed out
that he doesn't like the "or later" clause in general. Whether and when the
source code archive will be fixed, is another question.

> Here's my attempt at answering Orcan's question:
> 
> 1.  If source contains at least one GPL source code file (but let's
> ignore header files)

That exception is inacceptable already. So-called "header files" are
"source code", too, particularly if they contain inline functions and/or
define structures and other non-basic types.




More information about the Fedora-legal-list mailing list