Re: GPLv2 licensing issues

[Yavor Doganov]

В Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:42:15 -0400, Hubert Chathi написа:
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:08:52 +0000 (UTC), Yavor Doganov <address@hidden>
>>> or http://price.sourceforge.net/exception.html
> 
> What problems do you see with it?

IMVHO such an exception *might* fix one side of the problem, but the 
resulting combined work still violates LGPLv3, which in turn is GPLv3 
with additional permissions.

Typically, exceptions like this one (or the most famous "OpenSSL 
exception") only work in cases when the requirement of the other license 
is and can be fulfilled in the combined work.  It is impossible to do 
this simultaneously for our case, when:

1) App's license says you must do foo
2) Lib's license says you must do bar

These are two contradicting requirements.
So the only way for a GPL'ed program to link with an LGPLv3'ed library is 
to apply the terms of the GPLv3, which is possible when the App's license 
is:

1) GPLv2 or later
2) Dual license GPLv2 and GPLv3 (I think Qt does this)
3) GPLv3 (or later)

In all these cases, the combination falls under GPLv3.

Of course, I'm eager to know what the licensing folks will say.

(Also, I think that it's out of the question to consider GNUstep as 
"system libraries" -- according to Brett openssl is not a system library, 
and I don't think that anyone will argue that openssl is much much closer 
to being a system library than the GNUstep libs are.)