Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: [Gcl-devel] 2.6.8 licensing

[Camm Maguire]

Greetings!

Tim Daly <address@hidden> writes:

>  I have previously discussed the question of using GCL with Axiom.
> GCL, originally ACKL, was written under IBM contract for Axiom.
>
> Both the FSF and Stallman in direct email said there was no problem
> using GCL with the mBSD code in Axiom. Note that Axiom distributes
> and builds directly from the unmodified sources in the repository.
> We add any patches, which we also distribute, at build time.
>
> Since the whole philosophical point of the GPL license is to
> guarantee the 4 freedoms, they are still guaranteed by this procedure.
>

You are of course correct and nothing in this proposal changes this.
The essence lies in the documentation license, which some have
interpreted as 'non-free' as they allow (but do not require) the
authors to specify some sections as 'unmodifiable'.  If GCL adopts the
new doc license, no such sections will (ever) be so designated.  This
satisfies the Debian Free Software Guidelines as well.

It seems all parties can be happy with this.  I was just asking if I
had overlooked something.

Take care,

> Tim Daly
>
>
> On 10/27/2010 10:28 PM, Donald Winiecki wrote:
>> A change to the most recent licenses will make things consistent with
>> FSF's current way of thinking about open source, though more
>> aggressive developers seem to think it's restrictive.  Given the
>> typical users and usual applications of GCL, this may not be an issue.
>>
>> But I'm not sure -- if GCL is licensed under GPL3, does that mean that
>> anything built with or under it will also have to be licensed under
>> GPL3?  (I guess that's why Camm is querying the Axiom list.)
>>
>> And copyrighting GCL under the FSF seems like a reasonable idea, but
>> without Camm, GCL would be fairly well static, I think.
>>
>> _don
>>
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> Don Winiecki, Ed.D., Ph.D.
>> Professor
>> Boise State University, College of Engineering
>> Department of Instructional&  Performance Technology
>> 1910 University Drive, Boise, Idaho 83725-2070 USA
>> E-mail: address@hidden
>> WWW: http://ipt.boisestate.edu
>> Telephone: (+01) 208 426 1899
>> Fax: (+01) 208 426 1970
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~d
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Camm Maguire<address@hidden>  wrote:
>>> Greetings!  The FSF has requested that we "change the software license
>>> to GPLv3 or later, and the documentation license FDLv1.3 or later".
>>> By this I think they mean LGPLv3 of course.  To remain consistent with
>>> the Debian Free Software guidelines, I think we'd have to add "with no
>>> invariant sections, no front-cover texts and no back-cover texts'" to
>>> the doc license.  I don't see any problem with this, but I thought I'd
>>> put this out for comment just in case anyone else does.
>>>
>>> Separately, at some point we might want to discuss having the FSF hold
>>> the copyright, if that is even possible, let alone desirable.
>>>
>>> I'm considering removing the binutils subtree, as all targets are
>>> working now with custreloc save ia64 and hppa, which use dlopen as
>>> always.  One can still build against an external bfd library if
>>> desired.  It is probably necessary to keep the local gmp copy as a
>>> convenience as many users don't seem to have this installed.
>>>
>>> Thoughts most welcome.
>>>
>>> Take care,
>>> --
>>> Camm Maguire                                        address@hidden
>>> ==========================================================================
>>> "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Gcl-devel mailing list
>>> address@hidden
>>> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gcl-devel
>>>
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-- 
Camm Maguire                                        address@hidden
==========================================================================
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah