Re: GNUstep Licensing.... GPLv2.1+ for apps instead of GPLv3

[Gregory Casamento]

Dan,

On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Daniel Berlin <dannyb@google.com> wrote:

Hi Greg,

> Gregory Casamento <greg.casamento <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Hey Stefan,

> On Tuesday, June 3, 2014, Stefan Bidi <stefanbidi <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>

>
> Yes, from what I hear one of them is a large search engine company based in
> mountainview.  And it's not the first one I've heard of.

I can unequivocally state this is not the case.  I'm not sure what
information you have, but i'm responsible for open source licensing
policy there, and have been for the past 8 years.  We do not
specifically avoid GNUstep at all, for licensing, or any reason.  In
fact, GNUStep has been supported, along with thousands of other open
source projects, through programs like GSOC.

​Yes, I'm aware of this and we are VERY thankful for the opportunity to participate.  As far as where I heard this, I believe it was someone trying to spread a little FUD.  I should have checked my facts on this one before making a statement such as that publicly.​

>> Would these companies and/or contributors be more inclined to
>> contribute to the project if portions of it were GPLv2 over GPLv3?
> Yes because there is apparently a no gplv3 policy in some conpanys
> due to gplv3 patent restrictions.

We have no such policy. In general, the only licenses we ban across
the board are those that are not actually open source (IE say, GPLv2 +
some random restrictive clause) and thus incompatible with most actual
open source licenses.

​Thank you for your feedback.​

Things like GPLv3 are fine to use, we just make people aware of what
we will require of them if they use it (IE installation information
requirements, etc), and they make a business decision whether they
want to use it for their case.

​That's good to know.​  We are still considering changing the license of GNUstep's tools back to GPLv2+, but it's good to know that Google has no policy against GPLv3 specifically.

 

HTH,
Dan

 

​It does help very much.​

Thanks, 

--
Gregory Casamento
Open Logic Corporation, Principal Consultant
yahoo/skype: greg_casamento, aol: gjcasa
(240)274-9630 (Cell)
http://www.gnustep.org
http://heronsperch.blogspot.com