Dear Andrew!
Thank you for your prompt response.
The problem is, the paragraph in question circumscribes the terms of the GPL and it fails to do it properly. That's what's causing the problem. Besides that, the term "Open Source Edition" is not clarified, as far as I could see.
If the license stated in this file does not apply, can you please remove it from the tarball and just include a copy of the FSF license instead?
Regards,
Volker Fröhlich
On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 20:36 +0100, Andrew Mustun wrote:
Hello,
The dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the GPL v2 without anything to add or remove from that.
The paragraph below is meant to clarify what GPL / Open Source means. If your application is released under the GPL v2, the commercial license contained in file dxflib_commercial_license.txt simply does not apply at all for you.
Regards, Andrew Mustun
On 10/31/12 8:24 PM, Volker Froehlich wrote:
Dear RibbonSoft!
I'm a packager with the Fedora GNU/Linux distribution. I'm packaging SAGA GIS (https://sourceforge.net/projects/saga-gis/), which uses dxflib.
I read that the "Open Source Edition" of dxflib was licensed under the terms of GPL version 2. While this is clearly stated in the headers of the source code, the file dxflib_commercial_license.txt causes us headache.
""" NOTE: dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the GPL and not under this Agreement. If Licensee has, at any time, developed all (or any portions of) the Application(s) using RibbonSoft's publicly licensed dxflib Open Source Edition, Licensee must comply with RibbonSoft's requirements and license such Application(s) (or any portions derived there from) under the terms of the Free Software Foundation's GNU General Public License version 2 (the "GPL") a copy of which is located at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC1 (i.e., any Product(s) and/or parts, components, portions thereof developed using GPL licensed software, including dxflib Open Source Edition, must be licensed under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL-based source code must be made available upon request). """
Tom Callaway of Red Hat found this statement was not in line with the GPL and therefore non-free:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/legal/2011-October/001734.html
It'd be great if we could work this out together. A clear license situation would allow to include dxflib in Fedora and other distributions that care about software freedom.
Sincerely,
Volker Fröhlich
Dear list readers!
I got no further response from Ribbonsoft. Is the below statement strong enough to consider dxflib free?
Regards,
Volker Fröhlich
On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 20:51 +0100, Volker Froehlich wrote:
Dear Andrew!
Thank you for your prompt response.
The problem is, the paragraph in question circumscribes the terms of the GPL and it fails to do it properly. That's what's causing the problem. Besides that, the term "Open Source Edition" is not clarified, as far as I could see.
If the license stated in this file does not apply, can you please remove it from the tarball and just include a copy of the FSF license instead?
Regards,
Volker Fröhlich
On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 20:36 +0100, Andrew Mustun wrote:
Hello,
The dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the GPL v2 without anything to add or remove from that.
The paragraph below is meant to clarify what GPL / Open Source means. If your application is released under the GPL v2, the commercial license contained in file dxflib_commercial_license.txt simply does not apply at all for you.
Regards, Andrew Mustun
On 10/31/12 8:24 PM, Volker Froehlich wrote:
Dear RibbonSoft!
I'm a packager with the Fedora GNU/Linux distribution. I'm packaging SAGA GIS (https://sourceforge.net/projects/saga-gis/), which uses dxflib.
I read that the "Open Source Edition" of dxflib was licensed under the terms of GPL version 2. While this is clearly stated in the headers of the source code, the file dxflib_commercial_license.txt causes us headache.
""" NOTE: dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the GPL and not under this Agreement. If Licensee has, at any time, developed all (or any portions of) the Application(s) using RibbonSoft's publicly licensed dxflib Open Source Edition, Licensee must comply with RibbonSoft's requirements and license such Application(s) (or any portions derived there from) under the terms of the Free Software Foundation's GNU General Public License version 2 (the "GPL") a copy of which is located at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC1 (i.e., any Product(s) and/or parts, components, portions thereof developed using GPL licensed software, including dxflib Open Source Edition, must be licensed under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL-based source code must be made available upon request). """
Tom Callaway of Red Hat found this statement was not in line with the GPL and therefore non-free:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/legal/2011-October/001734.html
It'd be great if we could work this out together. A clear license situation would allow to include dxflib in Fedora and other distributions that care about software freedom.
Sincerely,
Volker Fröhlich
legal mailing list legal@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal
On 11/18/2012 05:21 PM, Volker Froehlich wrote:
Dear list readers!
I got no further response from Ribbonsoft. Is the below statement strong enough to consider dxflib free?
Unfortunately not. Red Hat Legal has concerns about the following text:
If Licensee has, at any time, developed all (or any portions of) the Application(s) using RibbonSoft's publicly licensed dxflib Open Source Edition, Licensee must comply with RibbonSoft's requirements and license such Application(s) (or any portions derived there from) under the terms of the Free Software Foundation's GNU General Public License version 2 (the "GPL") a copy of which is located at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC1 (i.e., any Product(s) and/or parts, components, portions thereof developed using GPL licensed software, including dxflib Open Source Edition, must be licensed under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL-based source code must be made available upon request).
We're not sure what that means, or what they're trying to accomplish, but it seems to imply that software which uses dxflib must be licensed under the GPL as well (which is not how the GPL works).
It would be helpful if Ribbonsoft could describe what they're trying to accomplish here, or even better, drop this text entirely (as that should resolve the outstanding issue).
~tom
== Fedora Project
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Tom Callaway -
Volker Fröhlich