Re: [Notion-devel] Is any of the notion@sf.net admins around?

[M R. <mr...@gm...>]

On Sun, 2010-08-22 at 19:53 +0200, Arnout Engelen wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 07:38:58AM +0200, M Rawash wrote:
> > On Fri, 2010-08-20 at 05:23 +0000, Olof Johansson wrote:
> > > On 2010-08-20 04:56, M Rawash wrote:
> > > > I'd suggest that we have a separate license file (let's say 
> > > > LICENSE-notion) which we can refer to instead of Tuomo's made-up 
> > > > license this way we will at least look like we're trying to
> > > > make it "free" (also, doesn't put us at odds with the LGPL; continuing
> > > > the (ab)use of Tuomo's license does!)
> > > 
> > > It's Tuomo's code, he decides the rules. It's not an abuse, even
> > > though you might not like it.
> > 
> > I'm not questioning Tuomo's right to license his work under whatever
> > license he pleases, but the fact remains that it's still an abuse of the
> > LGPL, see: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL
> 
> I don't think this is accurate.
> 
> The section of the FAQ you quote applies to distributing *modified* versions 
> of the LGPL text: for example, actually changing some of the terms and 
> wordings of the license text.
> 
> What Tuomov did, instead, is including the 'official' unmodified LGPL 
> verbatim, and stating his additional terms separately. Afaics this is OK.
> 

Well, not exactly, Tuomo _did_ modify the LGPL (in addition to "stating
his additional terms separately"), by both changing the meaning and
implication of some words (i.e. "this license") and omitting entire
sections (i.e. "Sections 3 and 13"). whether this actually counts as a
modification (with legal implications) or Tuomo was simply exploiting a
loophole in the way the (L)GPL is copyrighted, is debatable, and that's
why i said it was an "abuse" of the LGPL, rather than outright illegal.

On the other hand, Tuomo clearly states that this is a "modified"
version of the LGPL in the first paragraph of the license itself: 

"[...]this software is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public
License, version 2.1 ("LGPL", reproduced below), extended and
__modified__ with the following terms[...]"

i rest my case :)

> > how is using a different license for _our_ code an abuse? doesn't that 
> > contradict what you just said?
> 
> It's not entirely clear to me whether it'd be legal to directly mix code that's
> under the LGPL and code that's under the 'LGPL-extended'.

>From my understanding of both the LGPL (including Tuomo's "extended"
version) and the the FSF "gpl-faq", i'd say it's OK to mix differently
licensed code (in this particular case) as long as the 'whole' work is
licensed under the original license (i.e. Tuomo's "extended" license),
read Section 2 of the LGPL.

This, btw, also means, that we can *never* change the way notion will be
licensed, even if 99% of the code was no longer Tuomo's, as it will
always be considered a "derived work".

> To be on the safe side, I think we should simply ask contributors to 
> dual-license their contributions (so they're available under both the LGPL and
> the 'LGPL-extended'), and indicate this in the respective source files.

Well, i would have been for this, if Tuomo hadn't included a copyright
notice at the top of his extended license (which we cannot modify!), I
guess this means that by referring to 'that' license we are
unequivocally transferring all copyrights to "Tuomo Valkonen"!


We should definitely have this talk now, rather than later, i hope more
people can get in on this.

regards,
M Rawash