incompatible licences and other issues

[Patrice Dumas]

> Maybe one should regard the appearance of such an email as a compliment to
> GrADS. It is important enough, that somebody took the time to check the
> copyrights of all files! However, as Hoop pointed out, this person does not
> appear to have any kind of authority to speak on such matters.

I have absolutely no authority I am not a lawyer, but in packaging some
software I have repeatedly found licence incompatibilities. My goal is not
to annoy people but to have grads included in fedora extras. In order to
achieve that I have to make sure that there is no licence issue. I do it
as well as I can but I can do mistake, so I send what I find on mailing
list to have a clarification.

> Had he studied the sources more carefully, he would have noticed that I
> shamefully, i.e., without giving proper credit :), copied the copyright
> information from the GD library into gxeps.c.  GD is distributed by many Linux
> distro's, like RedHat, Mandriva or Debian.  If these distro's feel it is GPL
> compatible -- and they presumable have lawyers at hand -- so should you.

The linux distro don't ship only GPL compatible softwares. For example
they ship apache which is not GPL compatible. It is possible that the
gd licence is not GPL compatible, but it may still be free software.
Anyway thanks for the pointer. From my reading of the licence I felt that
it was like the BSD with advertisement clause which is not GPL compatible
but it is very possible that I am wrong. I am not only not a lawyer but
also not an english native speaker, so sometimes I misunderstand the
precise meaning of the licences (that happened once to me). I'll submit
that case to the FSF anyway such that they clear this issue once for all,
they have the authority I don't have :)

> In any case, as the author and copyright holder of gxeps,  I assure everybody
> that in my view, COLA is giving proper credit by a) listing me as a contributor
> of GrADS in the documentation on their web site and by b) not removing my name
> or the copyright info from the gxeps source.

Indeed, but the issue is not that way around, it is the other way around: your
licence should be GPL compatible to be distributed with GPL code otherwise
there is a licence which is violated (either your licence, or the GPL I
don't know exactly which one).

> With regards to gxgif: If Hoop's gasdf.c has any kind of odor, gxgif surely
> stinks like rotten fish. If is unsupported and buggy. Still, some people like to
> have it around. It is for these that COLA is distributing it.  Yes, there is no
> copyright info in gxgif.c.  It has been distributed for years without bothering

My problem is not that there is not enough copyright/licence info... But
there is too much! There is one licence for the code copied from gd.h,
some code seems to come from another source (gd?) and there is also
a copyright/licence from ppmtogif.c, another by David Koblas. As they
seem all BSD like they are likely to be compatible and GPL compatible,
but it is a bit strange to have all these copyrights and licences in the
same file. I think that for this one I'll ask on the fedora mailing list
if it is acceptable for inclusion in fedora extras.

> Mike Fiorino may chip in about LATS. The current copyright may indeed make it
> difficult for 3rd parties to redistribute GrADS. So what? COLA has permission to
> distribute LATS. Anybody else may have to contact the authors before doing so.

Sure, but such a restriction make it GPL incompatible. And it is not possible
to ship GPL code together with GPL-incompatible code. The relevant bit of the
GPL is:

    b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.

This is not possible for lats, so there is a real trouble here.

--
Pat