On Die, 2008-02-12 at 18:30 +0100, Immo 'FaUl' Wehrenberg wrote:
> Hallo Hannes,
> du schrobst:
> > could you pls submit a patch containing your 'only allowed with
> > an OSS' release clause ?
> 
> I need to get an ok to that then by Vassilis, Sven-Ola, Bernd and 
> You IIRC.

The short answer: Fine with me.
Personally (IANAL) the only issue I see here with "distribution of
source code[0] of a GPLed plugin with a BSD-licensed core" is that the
announcement of the license on sf.net should probably include the above.
But that raises probably other issues.

As for binary packages: Make one package per plugin and be done.
At least for the plugins with external master repositories.

For the "we use only BSD-licensed" source: Just remove the plugins (as
in `rm -r .../lib/$PLUGIN`) in question right after download and be
done.

Do we want each plugin's source (or the few in question) in a
separate .tar.gz to avoid license conglomerates?

BTW at least I'm silently assuming that all sent patches are implicitly
(at least) BSD-licensed as they are meant for an open and "officially"
BSD-licensed source base.
That of course doesn't apply for the bmf or quagga-plugin as both have
their master repository somewhere else and the occasional (and
intentional 1:1) copy in olsrd CVS/hg repository has IMHO two purposes:
- people get more easier a working plugin (or at least a compiling
  one;-) and we avoid discussions which release of olsrd works with
  which release of $PLUGIN.
- I used it to communicate changes because of core changes back to their
  authors - I changed there only IMHO necessary things.
BTW patches/changes by me to the external plugins are under that plugins
license (whatever it is).

For my understanding of the law view on that: And there is IMHO no real
"answer" (which a techie wants to be sure) as there was no court
decision anywhere in the world about such an issue and also the law
academics worlds is also discussing all of these problems (e.g. the
usual gpl-violations.org cases are completely different and much much
simpler IMHO).
And if/when there is a court decision, one must really read the decision
text and know something about the jurisdiction when one wants to make a
rule out for normal programmers of it.

I fear, the long answer would be very long as I tend to speak with law
people about such stuff (and there is *more* than one opinion out
there).
E.g. is it IMHO not really relevant if one links a binaries the one or
the other way. Law people have to define how they see the situation and
then the techie side can adapt to it (technically and organizationally).
As a techie, I would prefer simple rules in "techie speak" and techie
concepts. However, saner law people look not only on the actual
(possibly illegal) action but also on the intent and circumstances[1].
So no one will get a clear "if you link only as a shared library, it is
OK". The law term (when it comes to license "infights") is "derivative
work" and while there are several actions which imply that the work is
derivative ("copy/fork the source"), there is no general rule to rule it
out (e.g. "writing from scratch" does not necessarily create not work).
More details, examples and discussions about that can be found in the
Linux kernel mailing lists archive recently and not so recently.

Yes, many people probably do not agree to the above. I have no strong
opinion as IANAL (and so I left out all the "would"s and "could"s). I
only want to know what is dangerous and what is not so dangerous.

Just to be clear: That was not the long answer, that was more an
introduction into the problems;-)

Sorry for wasting everybodys time and diskspace,
	Bernd

[0]: Which is IMHO a different thing than distribution of binary
     packages when it comes to the "what is legal" question.
[1]: Lots of so-called "illegal actions" are not intentionally illegal
     but more often the result of lack of proper knowledge - especially
     if it comes to the non-profit (and non-governmental) area. So no
     need to punish someone immediately just for being
     silly/ignorant/....
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services




