Licensing issues in 0.9.0
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#7 Licensing issues in 0.9.0
There are licensing issues with certain source code files of both 0.8.0 and 0.9.0 versions, as described in the following thread:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1915005&forum_id=320014
The five licensing issues tracked at "Licensing" at wiki are now resolved. Three of the files are newly licensed under MIT license, thanks to the author Miika Nurminen. One file was relicensed by the author Chris Foltin. The five files:
* accessories/marktree.js
* freemind/main/CommonsCodecBase64.java
* accessories/mm2oowriter.xsl
* accessories/tohtml.xsl
* accessories/toxhtml.xsl
There are other issues reported at
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1915005&forum_id=320014
I repost their abridged statement here, letter-numbered for the ease of referring to them:
(a) The help plugin has a proprietary license.
(b) The svg-plugin depends on a Apache License which is not GPLv2 compatible.
(c) The scripting plugin depends on a specific Groovy license.
(d) The LaTeX plugin depends on HotEqn. This seems to be published under a GPLv3 license. GPLv3 license is not compatible with freemind's GPLv2+ overall license.
The help plugin (a) is now licensed under GNU GPL V2[http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Licensing]. That still presents a problem for upgrading FreeMind to GNU GPL V3+; it in any case at least theoretically threatens the claim that FreeMind is licensed under "GNU GPL V2+", with the plus included. (b) is an outstanding issue with unclear resolution; moving FreeMind to GNU GPL V3 would solve the problem. (c) Seems an issue, as "The LICENSE.txt file included with the Groovy 1.6.5 distribution states, 'Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License").'"[http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3740] As regards (d) HotEqn, there is a source code distribution that contains the V3 of GNU GPL, but the license headers in the source code files merely state that the license is "GPL" without stating the version of the license; the version of the license can only be inferred from the version of the file "gpl" contained in the distribution.
The licensing issues are also tracked at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Licensing.
As a summary, (a) is mildly remaining, (b) remains, and (c) remains.
--Dan
Repeating from my last comment: the help plugin (a) is now licensed under GNU GPL
V2. The lack of "+" in "V2" prevents license upgrade to GNU GPL V3.
There is the help viewing component http://helpgui.sourceforge.net/, licensed under GNU GPL V2+. The Helpgui component is used by Ganttproject, a Java Swing application. Switching to Helpgui would solve the licensing problem with the currently used component for showing help.
Also, someone could verify whether the Java help view component currently used by FreeMind is indeed licensed only under GPL V2, or whether I have made a mistake in determining this to be the case.
--Dan