| Subject: | Genicorp General Public License |
| Date: | Thu, 4 Sep 2008 13:51:34 +0200 |
| To: | bug-OpenOffice-OODoc [...] rt.cpan.org |
| From: | Maximilian Gaß <mxey [...] cloudconnected.org> |
OpenOffice::OODoc has a problematic license which is impossible to fullfil:
From: MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop>
Maximilian Gaß <mxey@cloudconnected.org> wrote:
Show quoted text
> I'm currently packaging libopenoffice-oodoc-perl and stumbled upon its
> license:
>
This licence is known to be fine for main, but contains the key phrase
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients'
exercise of the rights granted herein" in section 10. So, I think
that if the other licence contains any restrictions to copying not
already in LGPL-2.1 then we can't satisfy both licences at the same
time and so have no permission to copy it.
Show quoted text> > This software is free software. It is subject to the terms and
> > conditions of both
> >
> > - the GNU Lesser General Public Licence, version 2.1, of the
> > Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org);
> > - the Licence Publique Generale Genicorp, version 1.0 (see below,
> > English translation by Graeme A. Hunter).
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > Genicorp General Public Licence (version 1.0)
> > ---------------------------------------------
> >
> > The company GENICORP S.A., of 156 boulevard Haussmann, Paris, France
> > ("GENICORP")
> >
> > offers a set of software components ("the software") for use free of
> > charge, and which is designed to aid development of certain
> > information handling applications, under the following conditions:
> >
> > I - The software provided is not a finished industrial product and
> > cannot be accompanied by any kind of functional guarantee. It must
> > only be considered a model or aid for the creation of other
> > software. It is only designed to be used by experienced programmers
> > who must be sure it is appropriate for the required use.
> >
> > GENICORP hopes this software will prove useful but does not
> > guarantee that it will meet any of your needs and accepts no
> > responsibility whatsoever for any direct or indirect consequences
> > arising from its use.
These look like statements of fact and I think they're OK.
Show quoted text> > II - The software can be freely copied and passed to third parties
> > on condition that they accept the terms of this user licence which
> > should always accompany the software unchanged.
So it requires acceptance of Genicorp GPL, which is a restriction not
present in LGPL-2.1 as far as I saw, so we can't satisfy both
licences, so we have no permission.
Show quoted text> > III - The software can be freely modified. Modified versions can be
> > distributed free or otherwise under the following conditions:
> >
> > - A comment at the top of each modified module must explicitly
> > mention the name of the original module (name, date, version,
> > GENICORP's name) as well as the details of the author of the
> > modifications.
> > - The original version and this user licence must be made
> > available to the recipient of the modified version.
The first of these is in LGPL-2.1 section 2, so is fine.
The second is a restriction not present in LGPL-2.1, so another problem.
Show quoted text> > IV - The software can be included in an application where the other
> > components are either free or not, and this user licence remains
> > applicable and should be given unchanged to recipients of the
> > combined application.
Up to "applicable" is a statement of fact. From "should" seems like
an opinion (else they'd use "must" like in section III) and I think
it's fine to state it.
So section II and the second part of section III are additional
restrictions, which means we cannot satisfy both Genicorp and GNU
licences simultaneously, which means we have no permission to
distribute this software, which means it should not be uploaded until
this bug is fixed.
I don't think either of those are translation errors.
If someone agrees, please make CPAN aware of the licence status of
this module. I'd suggest emailing a summary of this bug to
bug-OpenOffice-OODoc [at] rt.cpan.org