Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
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Anand Babu wrote:
My recommendation is to adopt GNU GPL and find an alternative for the MPL'ed code or write one yourself. You can also ask the MPL'ed code author to dual-license with GNU GPL.
What happen's when the application in question only *installs* binary only packages that are licensed under licenses which are GPL incompatible ?
Installing a binary released under a free license is almost never a sin.
eg. I create an application/interface that installs two RPMs for two packages A and B. A is GPL compatible if not GPL itself and B is GPL incompatible. How do I license my interface/application or does the license for my application (which in a non strict sense is only an installer) as GPL compatible meet all requirements ?
You may license your interface/application as *you* please.
The "compatability" question is the extent to which you can relicense an existing work. For example, the BSD license gives most freedom here: you could take code released under the BSD license and release it under the GPL (BSD is therefore GPL compatible) or even release it under a non-free license. GPLed code can be released only under the GPL and therefore, it would be seen as BSD incompatible. The safest approach is to release the work under same license to avoid issues (and quite incidentally, respect the author's licensing philosophy :)
ps: Kushal had called me up last night on this issue and frankly the mix of licenses puzzled me a bit and I suggested that he write in here. If anyone has another person/list he can go to it would surely be appreciated
The free software licenses are proliferating at such a pace that it is slowly becoming a nuisance (or opportunity, depending on what one does for a living).
Today, the world is divided between those who publish source code, ie. free software developers releasing their work under a free license, and those who do not publish source code - non free software, where the source code is protected as a trade secret. While the non-free entities have reasons to fight among themselves, the free software community could have no room for self-defeating issues. All source code published on the internet should be deemed to be public domain software - atleast the decisions by the US courts are largely in that direction. The shift should be towards placing all free software in the public domain so that free software license proliferation stops and more attention goes into writing useful code without duplicating efforts.