From: Peter S G. <ps...@de...> - 2002-11-20 16:16:31
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Hi Richard (and others), I am CC'ing this to the Debian Bug Tracking System, the ilisp mailing list and the debian-legal list. I hope that's okay. Thanks for your reply. Richard Stallman <rm...@gn...> wrote: > Regarding ilisp, I suspect we were not careful enough about studying > the license and noticing the somewhat-self-contradictory statements > about price. We probably and thought it was a simple GPL-compatible > non-copyleft license. > > As for the more general question, we think that a program that uses > Emacs facilities needs to be GPL-covered, but a program that just uses > the Lisp language could have any license--it is not affected by the > license of Emacs. So since ilisp is using GPL'ed Emacs facilities, it doesn't currently have a valid license. This should get fixed within a few months. > Of course, if it is not free we should not be > distributing it at all. > > I filed a bug report[4] against the package which > started a discussion going. The current ilisp developers are likely all > agreeable to changing the license. > > That is good. This part is ambiguous too: > > o Any work distributed or published that in whole or in part > contains or is a derivative of this software or any part > thereof is subject to the terms of this agreement. > > It could mean that these conditions must be the only ones that apply > to such a larger work, or it could mean that these conditions must > apply but others may apply as well. The latter is GPL-compatible; > the former is not. > > Could you show me what new license they are considering? The GPL. They are proceeding with a good-faith effort to contact every past and current contributor to ask if anyone has objections to a license change. They also have another goal of assigning copyright to the FSF in order to eventually get the package folded into Emacs. See http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=1318794&forum_id=5779 Thanks, -- Peter S. Galbraith, Debian Developer <ps...@de...> GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE 6E68 8170 35FF 799E 6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/ > Envelope-to: rm...@gn... > Delivery-date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 13:08:48 -0500 > From: Peter S Galbraith <ps...@de...> > To: rm...@gn... > Subject: Re: Is Emacs a GPL'ed library wrt elisp code? > In-Reply-To: Message from Richard Stallman <rm...@gn...> > of "Wed, 07 Nov 2001 14:04:00 MST." <200...@wi...> > Organization: Debian GNU/Linux - www.debian.org > Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 13:08:27 -0500 > > Hello Richard, > > I ask you this question a year ago and got the following reply from you: > > Richard Stallman <rm...@gn...> wrote: > > > Emacs is GPL'ed and not LGPL'ed, yet it can be looked at as a > > library. Say I write some code in elisp intended to run on any > > variant of Emacs (I don't whether this point makes a difference > > or not). At what point does this code need to have a GPL > > compatible license to order to be distributed with Emacs (say on > > a CD) and not break Emacs' license? > > > > Sorry, I can't spare time just now to discuss hypothetical questions. > > Non-hypothetical issues get priority, and right now they are taking > > all my time. > > The situation isn't so theoretical anymore. It turns out that the > package ilisp[1] isn't licensed under the GPL but yet is distributed by > the FSF[2]. Its license is basically: > > Use and copying of this software and the preparation of derivative > works based on this software are permitted, so long as the following > conditions are met: > o The copyright notice and this entire notice are included intact > and prominently carried on all copies and supporting documentation. > o No fees or compensation are charged for use, copies, or > access to this software. You may charge a nominal > distribution fee for the physical act of transferring a > copy, but you may not charge for the program itself. > o If you modify this software, you must cause the modified > file(s) to carry prominent notices (a Change Log) > describing the changes, who made the changes, and the date > of those changes. > o Any work distributed or published that in whole or in part > contains or is a derivative of this software or any part > thereof is subject to the terms of this agreement. The > aggregation of another unrelated program with this software > or its derivative on a volume of storage or distribution > medium does not bring the other program under the scope > of these terms. > o Permission is granted to manufacturers and distributors of > lisp compilers and interpreters to include this software > with their distribution. > > I think that the clause "you may not charge for the program itself" > lands it in Debian's non-free archive[3]. It's not considered free > software by Debian. I filed a bug report[4] against the package which > started a discussion going. The current ilisp developers are likely all > agreeable to changing the license. > > Do you think that elisp codes that `require' Emacs GPL'ed modules need > to be GPL'eg themselves? Or is Emacs and all its libraries simply > considered an interpreter, and the license of the elisp code isn't > relevant (and could even be closed, released only in byte-compiled > form)? It would be good to clarify your position on the gnu web pages > somewhere. > > Refs: > [1] http://ilisp.sourceforge.net/ > [2] http://www.gnu.org/order/source15.html > [3] http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/ilisp.html > [4] http://bugs.debian.org/169243 > > Thanks, > -- > Peter S. Galbraith, Debian Developer <ps...@de...> > GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE 6E68 8170 35FF 799E > 6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/ |