[Linuxsampler-devel] LS licensing -- was Linuxsampler and Zynthian Project

[Robin G. <ro...@ga...>]

> That commercial exception, being ( snipped and quoted for the sake of
> pedantism ),
>
> '..under the GNU GPL with the exception that USAGE of the source code,
> libraries and applications *FOR*  COMMERCIAL HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE
> PRODUCTS IS NOT ALLOWED without prior written permission..'


GPL section 6 says

"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise
of the rights granted herein."

So how does that work out?

That additional commercial exception contradicts the GPL on which it is
based on and as result LS does not have a license. It is fully copyrighted.

It could become an new license: GPL without section 6 but with that
exception added instead. Then again this is at odds since one is not
allowed to modify the GPL itself. You can get around that by calling it
the LinuxSampler-License and not mention the GPL at all.


As side-note, generally source-code header license for individual files
trumps the license file from the collection. A quick grep shows that the
source itself has a GPLv2 boilerplate with no commercial exception
(unless I've missed some).

So if one were to take the individual source files and re-roll them into
a new archive... ?!

2c,
robin