Re: reftex needs to be upgraded.
Mats Lidell writes:
>>>>> Stephen wrote:
Stephen> The latest version is also GPLv3, unless I'm mistaken. We
Stephen> can't distribute it until we relicense.
OOPS!
I fear there are some questions to sort out before digging into this
;-)
Not really. I watched the FSF do basically the same thing, and they
asked the same set of questions I did.
- Do we really have to relicense all packages at the same time?
(Which means we can't do a release until they are all fixed in
CVS? Nothing more, nothing less.)
I don't think so. I hope not, if that's true we'll have to relicense
21.4 too, and I personally don't want to do that.
Since the XEmacs packages are distributed together in some sense
the GPLv3 really means it is an all or nothing thing? That each
package in some other sense is a package on its own doesn't matter?
No, I don't think it's all or nothing. The packages are a "mere
aggregation" AFAIK. The SUMOs have to be licensed as GPLv3 if they
contain GPLv3 packages, but that doesn't prevent individual files from
having their own licensing, as long as it is upwardly compatible to
GPLv3. We only have to relicense packages that themselves contain
GPLv3 code.
I'll talk to a lawyer, though.
I don't think we have to worry about it very much. I know a couple of
lawyers who would dearly love to have a case for whether Elisp has to
have the same version license as the Emacs that calls it, and I know
Richard is scared of having such a test case because he's not sure the
FSF would win. So I don't think we would find ourselves in court
without more or less reasonable bargining happening first.
- There is no problem with us relicensing GPLv2 stuff code to GPLv3
because that right is granted by GPLv2. Right?
No, it is *not* granted by GPLv2, it is granted by the "or later"
clause in the permission notice in the file. That's why we have to
check file by file for "or later", and for any weird conditions that
some weirdo like Andrew Choi might have inserted.
- Some packages are already GPLv3 upstream. Would syncing as part
of this task be worth while? (I guess it would best to decided
this on a per package basis since some syncs might be very time
consuming!?)
Syncing is a separate issue (except where relciensing is a
prerequisite), and should be kept that way or this will *never* get
done.:-)
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