Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of HTML Help Maker - savannah.nongnu.org

[pabs]

Hi,

Grrrr, my email forwarder doesn't seem to be working. Sorry for starting
a new thread, can't seem to get evolution launched from the list
archives in firefox/epiphany on this machine.

> Apologize for my big mistake, I deleted your project thinking that it
> runs only over Microsoft Windows.

No probs :)

> You choice the GNU GPL v2 only, but this is problematic. Would you
> agree to license your project under the "GNU GPL v2 or later"?
> 
> The reason for this is that when we publish GPL v3, it will be important
> for all GPL-covered programs to advance to GPL v3.  If you don't put
> this in the files now, the only way to port your program to GPL v3
> would be to ask each and every copyright holder, and that may be very
> difficult.
> 
> We can explain the issue in more detail if you wish.  If you have
> concerns about "GNU GPL v2 or later", we'd be happy to address them too.
> 
> Will you resubmit your project on Savannah considering the issue above?

I suppose I should have explained this in the initial submission. The
reason hhm is GPL2 only is that hhm statically links to an lzx
compression library that is licenced under the GPL2 only. I'm not very
adept at reading licences, so I just went with GPL2 only.

If I find the GPL3 acceptable, and linking a GPL>=2 program to a GPL==2
library is ok, or if myself and matthew (author of lzx_compress) find
the GPL3 to be an acceptable replacement licence, then I'd be happy to
migrate to GPL3/GPL>=2.

At the moment, I'm the only copyright holder for the hhm code (its only
one .c file at the moment), so relicensing would be no problem.

Here is an excerpt from the emails where I asked Matthew Russotto (the
lzx_compress author) why he licenced lzx_compress under the GPL2 only.
This was in August 2002.

=====================================================================
> > > Also any particular reason for the change from GPL>=2 to GPL==2
> > > for lzx_compress ?
> > Just paranoia on my part; a license that won't change based on the
> > whims of a third party makes more sense to me.
> > Don't you trust GNU (& RMS) with the GPL?
> Not more than I have to.  Everyone has his price -- and even if RMS 
> doesn't, he could be hit by a bus tomorrow.  As I said, paranoia.
=====================================================================

Should I resubmit, or is the submission still in the database?

Also, I (and I imagine many other free software developers) would
appreciate if RMS/GNU would put up a GPL3 page, stating the main changes
the GPL3 will make, and a summary of the intent of the clauses etc. It
would be nice if this document was kept up-to-date as development
progresses. I've seen some things in the press, but I've not seen
anything on the gnu.org homepage. Sorry for the off-topic message.

-- 
Bye,
Pabs

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