[Freemind-developer] Fwd: [gnu.org #643378] Re: GPLv2+/Apache 2.0 explicitly/implicitly compatible with GPLv3+

[Eric L. <fre...@zo...>]

Hello,

it looks like I've been overly pessimistic (and/or pedantic), and the 
position from the FSF representative is that GPLv2+ is compatible with 
Apache and with GPLv3, which is very good news.

Thanks for the interesting discussion and your attention,
Eric

PS: Dimitry, I will send this email also to the Freeplane mailing list 
for the archives, should someone come later with similar concerns.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [gnu.org #643378] Re: GPLv2+/Apache 2.0 explicitly/implicitly 
compatible with GPLv3+
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:47:36 -0500
From: Yoni Rabkin via RT <lic...@fs...>
Reply-To: lic...@fs...
To: Eric@Lavar.de


Hello and thank you for writing in.

> Questions:
> 1. is Apache 2 compatible with GPLv2+, as it *implicitly* contains
> GPLv3?

yes

> 2. is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2+, as it *implicitly* contains GPLv3?

yes

(just a nit-pick: GPLv2+ doesn't really "contain" GPLv3; instead GPLv2+
allows you to distribute the software under GPLv3 (or later) without any
further permission required from the copyright holder/s)

> Or more practically expressed:
> 1. do we need to *explicitly* re-license our program under GPLv3+ to
> make it compatible with Apache 2?

You don't need to relicense; but since your software will be
_effectively_ under GPLv3+ there is no harm in doing it.

> 2. if we would do this, would we need also to *explicitly* re-license
> all the GPLv2+ libraries we're using (and possibly recursively all
> libraries used by these libraries)

You don't need to relicense here either; by licensing their software
under GPLv2+ the authors of all of those libraries explicitly gave you
permission to use their software under GPLv3.

> I'm assuming that none of the libraries can be considered as a system
> library.

You are right again. If a particular library is a System Library you
don't need to worry about all of the above when dealing with its
licensing.

I hope these answers are of help.

--
I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice

    Regards, Yoni Rabkin