[Debburn-devel] Re: License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions

[Don Armstrong]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006, Andreas Barth wrote:
> * Adam Borowski (kilobyte at angband.pl) [060914 15:55]:
> > On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 03:37:11PM +0300, Markus Laire wrote:
> > > I'm concerned about the licensing of cdrkit[1,2] aka debburn, which
> > > was recently forked from cdrecord.
> > > 
> > > The current license seems to be GPLv2 + additional restrictions which
> > > IMHO is not right because GPLv2 doesn't allow any such additional
> > > restrictions.
> > > 
> > > An example from libscg/scsi-linux-ata.c[3]:
> > > <skip>
> > > *	Warning: you may change this source, but if you do that
> > > *	you need to change the _scg_version and _scg_auth* string below.
> > > *	You may not return "schily" for an SCG_AUTHOR request anymore.
> > 
> > Idea: what about reverting this single file to the last version under real
> > GPL (as opposed to GPL-with-unmodifiable-sections)?
> 
> This is not GPL-with-unmodifiable-sections, it is just "you need to
> document it if you change something". Which seems pretty fair to me,
> and I currently don't see the issue with GPL there.

The issue is that it could be construed as an additional restriction
not present in the GPL. The easiest thing to do would be to modify
those strings, and then delete the restriction, or even better, rip
out that entire section of libscg and rewrite it if it is actually
useful, getting rid of that warning at the same time. [This would
probably change the API...]

[I actually don't know if that warning has the force of a license,
though, since it doesn't state what happens to you if you violate it.
Perhaps you just get a visit by Jörg?]

For those following along at home, the reason why this doesn't fit
under GNU GPL §2a is because it requires the modification to be in a
specific place; it should be perfectly legal to modify the source code
and stick in a comment (like what is present at the top of this file
in cdrkit already) and be compliant with GPL §2a. It's especially
problematic because it requires modification of a part of the code
which could have functional ramifications. As such, it's an additional
restriction, and causes a problem with GPL §6.

In any event, it's a problem, but it's not like we haven't had this
problem in cdrecord for a while already.


Don Armstrong

-- 
We were at a chinese resturant.
He was yelling at the waitress because there was a typo in his fortune
cookie.
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch31.php

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu