6:51 p.m.
[redirected to xemacs-beta]
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
This code cannot be distributed with XEmacs AFAICT. It certainly
cannot be mixed with XEmacs code.
I won't insist on adding it. If xemacs.org doesn't want to distribute
non-GPL elisp code I think a "non-free" XEmacs package repository
could be useful, similar to non-free Debian packages.
Such a repository may encourage people to re-implement the software
under GPL, which would be what I'd like to see eventually.
If we really want it, I suggest that someone get in touch with
France
Télécom and request permission to distribute under GNU GPL. I believe
the real legal differences are technical and small; they might be
willing to do so. Or, if we should work through a French person, I
have an acquaintance who might be willing to help, and I'd be willing
to contact him.
I tried to mail them but the mail address in the package bounces.
If someone else would like to try, that would be very useful.
12:22 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
|--==> "SJ" == Simon Josefsson <jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
SJ> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
>This code cannot be distributed with XEmacs AFAICT. It certainly
>cannot be mixed with XEmacs code.
SJ> I won't insist on adding it. If xemacs.org doesn't want to distribute
SJ> non-GPL elisp code I think a "non-free" XEmacs package repository
SJ> could be useful, similar to non-free Debian packages.
I can't see how we could in any way support such a repository.
Wouldn't using one of these "non-free" packages violate XEmacs' GPL?
--
|---<Steve Youngs>---------------<GnuPG KeyID: 10D5C9C5>---|
| XEmacs - It's not just an editor. |
| It's a way of life. |
|------------------------------------<youngs(a)xemacs.org>---|
9:01 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
Steve Youngs <youngs(a)xemacs.org> writes:
|--==> "SJ" == Simon Josefsson <jas(a)extundo.com>
writes:
SJ> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
>>This code cannot be distributed with XEmacs AFAICT. It certainly
>>cannot be mixed with XEmacs code.
SJ> I won't insist on adding it. If xemacs.org doesn't want to distribute
SJ> non-GPL elisp code I think a "non-free" XEmacs package repository
SJ> could be useful, similar to non-free Debian packages.
I can't see how we could in any way support such a repository.
Wouldn't using one of these "non-free" packages violate XEmacs' GPL?
Isn't it the same thing as non-free Debian packages?
I'm thinking of XEmacs packages as something standalone from XEmacs.
I can't see how it would violate the GPL to separately distribute a
package with another license?
The best would be if it was possible to get in touch with the authors
and change the license, but I have failed.
10:03 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson
<jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
Simon> Isn't it the same thing as non-free Debian packages?
No, it's not. Elisp files are _part of Emacs_ when you write a mode.
They will interact with all the GPL code that already is part of
Emacs, calling out to it, providing hooks to be called from it. You
just can't argue that Emacs is functioning only as a Lisp language
translator here, an analogy to GCC. It is also using the "editor
library", which is analogous to glibc---which is _not_ GPL, as you may
recall, it is LGPL precisely so that non-free apps can link with it.
--
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things. I don't
have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember. Scott Gilbert c.l.py
11:27 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
On 5 Jun 2002, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson
<jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
Simon> Isn't it the same thing as non-free Debian packages?
No, it's not. Elisp files are _part of Emacs_ when you write a mode.
They will interact with all the GPL code that already is part of
Emacs, calling out to it, providing hooks to be called from it. You
just can't argue that Emacs is functioning only as a Lisp language
translator here, an analogy to GCC. It is also using the "editor
library", which is analogous to glibc---which is _not_ GPL, as you may
recall, it is LGPL precisely so that non-free apps can link with it.
By this argument Debian should not distribute the ASN1 mode as a Debian
package either? They currently do. It is even distributed in the "free"
category.
I have CCed the debian maintainer of the asn1-mode package. Do you
remember if the license was discussed?
Richard, if you can provide some guidance on how to resolve this, it would
be very useful. The core of the problem seem to be if it should be
possible to write non-GPL Emacs Lisp code at all. Much like it is
possible to write non-GPL code using Bash, GCC-specific C, Guile, Python
and other GPLd programming languages, I think it should be possible to
write non-GPL Emacs Lisp, but that's just my opinion.
11:40 p.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
Hallo,
On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 12:27:29PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
By this argument Debian should not distribute the ASN1 mode as a
Debian
package either? They currently do. It is even distributed in the "free"
category.
It's called "main", the other sections are "non-free" and
"contrib".
I have CCed the debian maintainer of the asn1-mode package. Do you
remember if the license was discussed?
There was a short discussion about the license, but not
about the issue, whether GNU Emacs modes have to be GPL or
not.
Richard, if you can provide some guidance on how to resolve this, it
would
be very useful. The core of the problem seem to be if it should be
possible to write non-GPL Emacs Lisp code at all. Much like it is
possible to write non-GPL code using Bash, GCC-specific C, Guile, Python
and other GPLd programming languages, I think it should be possible to
write non-GPL Emacs Lisp, but that's just my opinion.
As for the ASN.1 mode, I will kindly ask the authors
(Olivier Dubuisson, Guillaume Latu, and Stephane Levant, see
http://asn1.elibel.tm.fr/en/tools/emacs/unix/ for details)
to change the license to GPL, if necessary. If they don't
want to or can't do this, and the FSF insist on GPLed modes,
Debian cannot distribute the mode at all, not even in
"non-free".
Cheers,
--
W. Borgert <debacle(a)debian.org>
1:55 p.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
debacle <debacle(a)knorke.in-berlin.de> writes:
> Richard, if you can provide some guidance on how to resolve this,
it would
> be very useful. The core of the problem seem to be if it should be
> possible to write non-GPL Emacs Lisp code at all. Much like it is
> possible to write non-GPL code using Bash, GCC-specific C, Guile, Python
> and other GPLd programming languages, I think it should be possible to
> write non-GPL Emacs Lisp, but that's just my opinion.
As for the ASN.1 mode, I will kindly ask the authors
(Olivier Dubuisson, Guillaume Latu, and Stephane Levant, see
http://asn1.elibel.tm.fr/en/tools/emacs/unix/ for details)
to change the license to GPL, if necessary. If they don't
want to or can't do this, and the FSF insist on GPLed modes,
Debian cannot distribute the mode at all, not even in
"non-free".
I think that was the outcome of RMS' response to xemacs-beta. If you
are able to track down the authors and make them change the license,
that would be useful. The mail address mentioned in the elisp files
bounces.
1:57 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
Stephen J. Turnbull writes:
>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson
<jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
Simon> Isn't it the same thing as non-free Debian packages?
No, it's not. Elisp files are _part of Emacs_ when you write a mode.
They will interact with all the GPL code that already is part of
Emacs, calling out to it, providing hooks to be called from it. You
just can't argue that Emacs is functioning only as a Lisp language
translator here, an analogy to GCC. It is also using the "editor
library", which is analogous to glibc---which is _not_ GPL, as you may
recall, it is LGPL precisely so that non-free apps can link with it.
Er? Despite the analogy Emacs is not distributed as a library.
It is distributed as a Program, according the GPL.
8:12 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
>>>> "Kyle" == Kyle Jones
<kyle_jones(a)wonderworks.com> writes:
Kyle> Er? Despite the analogy Emacs is not distributed as a
Kyle> library. It is distributed as a Program, according the GPL.
"Program" vs "library" has no meaning in law AFAIK. The same GPL
treats libreadline as a Program, too.
The question is "does Emacs plus ASN1 constitute a derived work of
Emacs?" The analogy is to explain why I believe that distributing
ASN1 constitutes distributing (a part of) a work derived from X?Emacs.
Can ASN1 function as a process without Emacs? No. Therefore, as
software it is a derived work, and subject to distribution under the
conditions of the GPL.
--
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things. I don't
have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember. Scott Gilbert c.l.py
1:06 p.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
Isn't it the same thing as non-free Debian packages?
Non-free Debian packages are not linked with GPL-covered software.
They don't raise this sort of legal issue.
I'm thinking of XEmacs packages as something standalone from XEmacs.
When two modules are designed to be linked together, they are not
separate programs, and it can be a GPL violation.
9:52 a.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson
<jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
Simon> If xemacs.org doesn't want to distribute non-GPL elisp code
Simon> I think a "non-free" XEmacs package repository could be
Simon> useful, similar to non-free Debian packages.
My position has nothing to do with "doesn't want to".
And that _is_ a free software license AFAIK, nothing non-free about it
that I can tell. (Could be wrong, if so, Richard will surely tell us.)
--
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things. I don't
have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember. Scott Gilbert c.l.py
1:04 p.m.
New subject: [V] New package: ASN1
I won't insist on adding it. If xemacs.org doesn't want to distribute
non-GPL elisp code I think a "non-free" XEmacs package repository
could be useful, similar to non-free Debian packages.
Such a repository may encourage people to re-implement the software
under GPL, which would be what I'd like to see eventually.
Actually distributing the software encourages people to use it, not
reimplement it.
The way to encourage reimplementation is with a task list which gives
descriptions of the jobs to be done, and mentions the names of
programs to be replaced for the sake of people who already know them.
If a person says he is seriously interested in doing a certain job,
you would tell him where to find the program to be replaced, in case
that's useful for him.
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11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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debacle -
Kyle Jones -
Richard Stallman -
Simon Josefsson -
Stephen J. Turnbull -
Steve Youngs