11:37 p.m.
Jerry James wrote:
Hi,
Since Emacs has moved to GPLv3, in order to maintain our ability to
sync code with Emacs, we are now trying to move XEmacs to a GPLv3
distribution. We are currently auditing our source distribution to
locate files that cannot be relicensed automatically, due to a missing
"or later" clause in the license information.
I have added to your C module code over the last few years, so I
volunteered to contact you about some files that you created. In
particular, the top-level aclocal.m4 file and a couple of sample
module files were authored by you, but do not contain any licensing
information. Would you be willing to let us relicense them as "GPLv3
or later"? If so, could you please send an email to
xemacs-beta(a)xemacs.org explicitly granting us permission to do so? If
not, we will be forced to discard those files and rewrite the
functionality in another way.
Actually my preference would be to have it read
"GPL V2 or later" to
give people the opportunity to use GPL v2 which I understand, versus
GPL v3 which I don't fully yet. If that is acceptable please consider
this my formal permission to license it under GPL v2 or later. If you
insist on it being "GPL v3 or later" I will need to read the new GPL
more carefully to ensure it protects freedoms I want protected.
Kean
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11:16 p.m.
New subject: XEmacs and GPLv3
Kean Johnston <jkj(a)sco.com> writes:
Actually my preference would be to have it read "GPL V2 or
later" to
give people the opportunity to use GPL v2 which I understand, versus
GPL v3 which I don't fully yet. If that is acceptable please consider
this my formal permission to license it under GPL v2 or later. If you
insist on it being "GPL v3 or later" I will need to read the new GPL
more carefully to ensure it protects freedoms I want protected.
It is nonsensical to pretend to permit releasing "GPL v2 or later" while
barring a release as "GPL v3 or later", since "GPL v3 or later" is
covered by "GPL v2 or later".
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
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3:10 p.m.
New subject: XEmacs and GPLv3
Although it could've been phrased much more tactfully, the man does have
a point.
-- Gary F.
David Kastrup wrote:
Kean Johnston <jkj(a)sco.com> writes:
> Actually my preference would be to have it read "GPL V2 or later" to
> give people the opportunity to use GPL v2 which I understand, versus
> GPL v3 which I don't fully yet. If that is acceptable please consider
> this my formal permission to license it under GPL v2 or later. If you
> insist on it being "GPL v3 or later" I will need to read the new GPL
> more carefully to ensure it protects freedoms I want protected.
It is nonsensical to pretend to permit releasing "GPL v2 or later" while
barring a release as "GPL v3 or later", since "GPL v3 or later" is
covered by "GPL v2 or later".
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12:27 a.m.
New subject: XEmacs and GPLv3
Kean Johnston writes:
Actually my preference would be to have it read "GPL V2 or
later" to
give people the opportunity to use GPL v2 which I understand, versus
GPL v3 which I don't fully yet. If that is acceptable please consider
this my formal permission to license it under GPL v2 or later. If you
insist on it being "GPL v3 or later" I will need to read the new GPL
more carefully to ensure it protects freedoms I want protected.
While GPLv3 is similar enough to GPLv2 that I would be unwilling to
maintain a separate GPLv2 distribution, I definitely plan to tag the
tree at the point where we switchover so that your code (and mine! I
feel the same was except that I already know that I like v2 better
than v3) will be easily accessible to people under GPLv2. Would that
satisfy you, too?
Note that once the wording is "GPLv2 or later", legally anybody can
unilaterally choose to revise that to "GPLv3 or later". That is
precisely the point of the "or later" wording. Were you aware of
that?
If we do not make this change, it is practically infeasible to import
changes from GNU Emacs or any GPLv3 packages. AIUI, we can legally
distribute individual files under "GPLv2 or later", and (as part of
XEmacs) they automatically become v3 or later in some weird legal
sense. However, once XEmacs goes to "v3 or later" as a whole, that
means that the "default" for contribution is "v3 or later", and we
would need to check every contribution for (a) the actual license of
the file and (b) whether the new contributor finds that acceptable.
There are ways we can improve this situation, but they all require
changing our traditional workflow.
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1:40 a.m.
New subject: XEmacs and GPLv3
While GPLv3 is similar enough to GPLv2 that I would be unwilling to
maintain a separate GPLv2 distribution, I definitely plan to tag the
tree at the point where we switchover so that your code (and mine! I
feel the same was except that I already know that I like v2 better
than v3) will be easily accessible to people under GPLv2. Would that
satisfy you, too?
Yes indeed it would.
If we do not make this change, it is practically infeasible to
import
changes from GNU Emacs or any GPLv3 packages. AIUI, we can legally
distribute individual files under "GPLv2 or later", and (as part of
XEmacs) they automatically become v3 or later in some weird legal
sense. However, once XEmacs goes to "v3 or later" as a whole, that
means that the "default" for contribution is "v3 or later", and we
would need to check every contribution for (a) the actual license of
the file and (b) whether the new contributor finds that acceptable.
I speak 3
languages, program in 6 and consider myself reasonably
smart but that whole paragraph just plain made my head hurt :)
It also makes me wonder why you want to make the default be V3.
But as regards to my code, I happily put it under a "V2 or later"
license. If you then need to revise that to be "v3 or later" for
inclusion in a v3-based XEmacs, thats fine by me too.
Kean
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4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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David Kastrup -
Gary Foster -
Kean Johnston -
Stephen J. Turnbull