[Olsr-dev] olsrd 0.5.5 released !

[Henning Rogge]

On Feb 9, 2008 10:37 AM, Holger Levsen <(spam-protected)> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As I understand it - which might definitly be wrong (!!!), you include and
> link to GPL licenced code, so the only legal way to distribute olsrd is under
> the GPL, not under a BSD licence!(!!!)
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/info/BSD_3Clause.html claims the 3-clause BSD
> licence is GPL compatible, if the BSD licenced code is distribted under the
> GPL: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/compat.html
>
> See for yourself (and please correct me if I'm wrong)
>
> src/cfgparser/oparse.c and src/cfgparser/oparse.h are GPL-2+ licenced (and
> copyrighted by the FSF)

>From oparse.c:

/* As a special exception, you may create a larger work that contains
   part or all of the Bison parser skeleton and distribute that work
   under terms of your choice, so long as that work isn't itself a
   parser generator using the skeleton or a modified version thereof
   as a parser skeleton.  Alternatively, if you modify or redistribute
   the parser skeleton itself, you may (at your option) remove this
   special exception, which will cause the skeleton and the resulting
   Bison output files to be licensed under the GNU General Public
   License without this special exception.

   This special exception was added by the Free Software Foundation in
   version 2.2 of Bison.  */

So the use of the parser is okay, because there is an exception to
link it against non GPL code.

> lib/quagga/src/quagga.h lib/quagga/src/olsrd_plugin.c lib/quagga.c are GPL-2+
> licenced too, as is lib/quagga/src/quagga/zebra.h.
The quagga plugin is a problem...
olsrd links to the plugin libraries, so they cannot be GPL (LGPL would be okay).

> AFAIK you cannot do this (using the above GPL licenced files in your BSD
> licenced application) and I wonder what you can do to resolve this situation.
> I believe you have three options (if you want to distribute olsrd unter the
> BSD licence): relicencing the work (needs all contributors to agree to this)
> or getting rid of the code and rewriting it. Or tell the world that olsrd is
> GPL licenced ;-)
If we can contact everyone who has written/modified the quagga plugin
it would be great to relicence it to LGPL... if not I think the quagga
plugin has to be removed.

> gui/linux-gtk/* is also GPL licenced, but AFAIK this is a no issue, as it's a
> seperate application, which just happens to be distributed in the same
> tarball.
Yes.

Henning

-- 
"Wo kämen wir hin, wenn alle sagten, wo kämem wir hin, und niemand
ginge, um einmal zu schauen, wohin man käme, wenn man ginge." (Kurt
Marti)