Re: Licensing question

[John Belmonte <jvb@...>]

Björn De Meyer wrote:
> I also apologise to but in here, but if I understand what the 
> FSF says, it is exactly the requirement that the copyright is 
> mentioned in the documentation that could cause incompatiblity 
> with the GPL. The problem with the GPL is that it forbids any 
> extra limitations on distribution outside the GPL.


The clause in the original BSD license that caused GPL incompatibility 
is this:

  All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
  must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes
  software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its
  contributors.


The Lua license does not have such a clause.  Nonetheless, repeating 
myself, we need an official word from FSF on GPL compatibility, or we 
need the Lua authors/ Tecgraf to kindly switch to a standard license.  I 
and a few others on the list would opt for the latter.  When even the 
Lua authors are misinterpreting their own license, the difficulty of 
answering every day questions about "little licenses" (those not covered 
by common sources of license info such www.gnu.org and opensource.org) 
is plain to see.

By the way, I think the following two steps in the process for "Getting 
a License Approved" at opensource.org are very telling:


    2. Tell us which existing OSI-approved license is most similar to 
your license. Explain why that license will not suffice for your needs. 
If your proposed license is derived from a license we have already 
approved, describe exactly what you have changed. This document is not 
part of the license; it is solely to help the board understand and 
review your license.

    3. Explain how software distributed under your license can be used 
in conjunction with software distributed under other open source 
licenses. Which license do you think will take precedence for derivative 
or combined works? Is there any software license that is entirely 
incompatible with your proposed license?.


-John




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