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0 pointsmesse3y ago0 comments

I think one of the matters that confused me about it was the CLISP question. IIRC, CLISP linked to readline, but was released under a non-GPL license.

RMS contacted them, and asked them to relicense. They suggested either reimplementing a stub readline-library, or rewriting their line editing code against another lib instead. RMS insisted that they would still be a GPL-derivative, resulting in the current license situation.

I may be misremembering the recount of this, as this was way before my time.

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adastra223y ago

RMS may have believed or wanted that, but it is my understanding (IANAL!) that the case law has been settled differently. If you are found in violation of the GPL due to a dependency you weren't aware was released under the GPL, you can fix that violation by rewriting your application to avoid the GPL dependency.

CLISP et al cannot be forced to distribute their code under the GPL. It's their code and their choice; contract law cannot compel someone who has never entered into the contract to do something against their will -- CLISP didn't knowingly distribute GPL code, so that distribution doesn't trigger acceptance of the GPL terms. They just have to make the situation right once they're made aware of the violation.

pornel3y ago

It's more nuanced. If you've included GPL code and modified or redistributed it, then you either have to comply with the GPL to have permission for that use, or you've potentially committed a copyright violation.

To comply with the GPL you only need to publish the one specific snapshot of source code you've combined and redistributed with GPL code, but you don't need to permanently relicense your project if it doesn't contain any code you don't have rights to use. The "tainted" version will be granted as GPLed forever, but other earlier or later versions that don't use any GPL code don't have to.

Or you can go the copyright way, and claim it wasn't a copyright violation (because it was a fair use, or non-copyrightable code) or settle the matter in whatever way the law lets you get away with.

adastra223y ago

That isn’t any different from what I said though? If someone points out you violated their copyright then you need to (1) fix the issue, and (2) pay appropriate damages. But for open source software the damages are nil, so fixing the violation is the only thing you need to do. And you can do that by either releasing the code as GPL, or removing the dependency. Either would be an acceptable remedy, in the eyes of the law.

professoretc3y ago

Here's the email chain between RMS and Bruno Haible, author of CLISP:

    https://sourceforge.net/p/clisp/clisp/ci/tip/tree/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL

Apparently the situation was that CLISP was distributed as `lisp.a` and `libreadline.a` (with source for Readline included) and the end-user linked them together. Haible offered to write a `libnoreadline.a` library, exporting Readline's function but not providing their functionality, but RMS insisted that the result would still be a derived work of Readline.

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adastra223y ago

pornel3y ago

Or you can go the copyright way, and claim it wasn't a copyright violation (because it was a fair use, or non-copyrightable code) or settle the matter in whatever way the law lets you get away with.

adastra223y ago

professoretc3y ago

Here's the email chain between RMS and Bruno Haible, author of CLISP:

    https://sourceforge.net/p/clisp/clisp/ci/tip/tree/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse