[Zope-dev] Re: ZPL and GPL licensing issues

[Federico Di Gregorio]

On 22 Jun 2001 09:33:22 -0700, Simon Michael wrote:
> Thanks for a most illuminating thread. Slight clarification to a
> comment of yours Shane -
> 
> Shane Hathaway <shane@digicool.com> writes:
> > GPL code together.  ZWiki is just in a strange position because the
> > GPL is not actually in effect.
> 
> I'm not sure I'd use those words - the license is certainly fully "in
> effect", I'd say, if not exactly "enforced by a battalion of lawyers".
> 
> One of the consequences being that someone re-distributing zope &
> zwiki together, under their default licenses, is technically in
> violation right now, I think we are all agreeing.

right.

> I'm not aware of anyone doing this right now, though there was a zwiki
> package for Debian GNU/linux at one point. Would Debian be in
> violation shipping both zope & zwiki packages on a cd ? If they
> thought so, sooner or later one or the other would get dropped from
> the distribution. Unfortunate and detrimental to both zwiki and zope.
> In principle this would apply to all linux distributions.

not only. i can assure you that somebody in debian find even a single
line of gpl code in the zope main packge zope will be removed from the
distribution until license compatibility is (re)estabilished. same story
for zope products currently available in debian. i don't have all that
time, so i wont be the guy doing that, but, first or later, someone will
surely try to track down all the licens incompatibilities in zope debian
packages. just look at the kde/qt problem (now fortunately resolved...)

> Does this serve as an example of a problem with the current situation
> for DC management ?
> 
> Another would be the fact that DC's own options are limited if it (DC)
> ever had the desire to distribute or sell something leveraging
> zwiki. Sure, it could convince me that LGPL makes better sense, or
> offer me a large sum of money to draw up a special alternate license
> (hey, on the double :-). But this would have to be repeated with each
> developer where the situation arose.

right. maybe dc has some to gain froma gpl-compatible zope and not only
the no-harm i detailed before.

> Probably better to update the ZPL to solve this problem in one sweep,
> ensure that zope is participating fully within the preeminent sphere
> of software creativity, and earn a whole bunch of new support from the
> world developer community.
> 
> And python did it.
> 
> And there's no downside to making yourself GPL-compatible that I can
> think of.

absolutely. ciao,
federico

-- 
Federico Di Gregorio
MIXAD LIVE Chief of Research & Technology              fog@mixadlive.com
Debian GNU/Linux Developer & Italian Press Contact        fog@debian.org
  99.99999999999999999999% still isn't 100% but sometimes suffice. -- Me