Re: Packages, release notes, etc

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>>> With respect to license, I think it is not even possible for an Emacs
>>>> package to have a license different than GPL version 3 or later.
>>> Not exactly: the license can be different from GPLv3+, but it should
>>> be compatible with GPLv3+, indeed.
>> But what's the purpose of the copyleft when I can release a derived work
>> basing on GPL code under a GPL-compatible license which has no copyleft
>> anymore, e.g., Apache License, Version 2.0?
>
> You can't take existing GPL code and distribute it with an MIT
> license, indeed.  But you can distribute the code *you* write with
> an MIT license.
>
> You have to use a license that's compatible with the GPL not because
> it's a mere derivative of GPL'd code, but because that code can only
> work by linking with GPL'd code.  IIUC this is a theory that hasn't been
> tested in court.

Notice that what has been tested in court, is that a _translation_ is a
derived work, and subject to the copyright of the original copyright
holder.

And this is something that I would love to see tested in court, if
somebody took a GPL library written in, say lisp, translated it into
say C, and tried to distribute it under a different licence.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                 http://www.informatimago.com/
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a
dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to
keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk