nanogui: Thread: Licensing summary

: That's the reason I thought we'd have to move David's code into seperate
: files- because his code wants to go into files with his Public Domain
: license on them, and the new code wants to go into files with the MPL on
: them.

	No - this is specifically what we _dont_ want to do.  David's
license allows us to create derivative works and do what we want with it,
providing that we leave his copyright notice intact.

	If we have to rewrite _any_ of Dave's code, I need to know now.
This will greatly affect the Xlib project.  It doesn't affect MicroWindows so much.



: 
: > 	What are the semantics of a "conversion", anyway?
: 
: You just redistribute everything under the new license. It would have to
: be a total conversion though, because the GPL wouldn't allow some GPL
: parts and some MPL parts, and I don't think it, or any improvements made
: to the GPLed version could be converted back to MPL without explicit
: permission of the author of the changes.

	Does this mean that the tree would split at this point?  I plan
on remaining the maintainer of the project, and don't want two trees.

Greg

----- Original Message -----
From: Alex Holden ####@####.####
To: Greg Haerr ####@####.####
Cc: ####@####.#### ####@####.####
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: Licensing summary


> On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Greg Haerr wrote:
> > Yes.  I think I agree.  But I want to be completely clear on David's
> > code.  His original code retains his original PDL license.  The code
that's
> > included in nano-X and/or MicroWindows is a derivative work, and is not
> > subject to any terms other than his original terms: leave the copyright
> > notice intact.
>
> That's the reason I thought we'd have to move David's code into seperate
> files- because his code wants to go into files with his Public Domain
> license on them, and the new code wants to go into files with the MPL on
> them.

No, I don't think we need to do that.  We can do *whatever* we want as long
as the copyright message remains intact, and that includes MPLing, GPLing,
or ThisThatAndTheOtherPLing it.


> > What are the semantics of a "conversion", anyway?
>
> You just redistribute everything under the new license. It would have to
> be a total conversion though, because the GPL wouldn't allow some GPL
> parts and some MPL parts, and I don't think it, or any improvements made
> to the GPLed version could be converted back to MPL without explicit
> permission of the author of the changes.

The whole dual/conversion license scheme is confusing to me.


Regards,
Brad

On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Greg Haerr wrote:
> 	No - this is specifically what we _dont_ want to do.  David's
> license allows us to create derivative works and do what we want with it,
> providing that we leave his copyright notice intact.

Ok.

> 	Does this mean that the tree would split at this point?  I plan

Only if the person who converted his copy to GPL decided to maintain a
seperate, GPLed tree. The tree could also split for technical rather than
license issues. Basically we only really want the GPL clause so that
people who want to use parts of Nano-X in a GPLed project can convert
those parts to GPL, but there's nothing stopping somebody who really hated
the MPL for some reason from maintaining a seperate, GPL only tree of
their own. This isn't likely to happen if the main MPLed tree continues to
develop at a decent pace (the GPL tree maintainer would have to spend a
lot of his time back-porting changes from the MPL tree to his GPL tree
rather than working on new code).

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------