Bug#624310: closed by Mike Hommey <mh at glandium.org> (Re: Bug#624310: [libnss3-1d] Out of date copyright file)

[Mike Hommey]

On Mon, Jul 04, 2011 at 06:40:46PM +0200, Bastien ROUCARIES wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 6:33 PM, Mike Hommey <mh at glandium.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 04, 2011 at 06:30:32PM +0200, Bastien ROUCARIES wrote:
> >> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 6:24 PM, Mike Hommey <mh at glandium.org> wrote:
> >> > On Mon, Jul 04, 2011 at 06:21:03PM +0200, Bastien ROUCARIES wrote:
> >> >> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Mike Hommey <mh at glandium.org> wrote:
> >> >> >> > The NSS code is under 3 licenses, not only the GPL...
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> No because you include 4 bsd it is illegal to license under GPL. Will
> >> >> >> send mail to legal.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The DBM source code in nss is not licensed under GPL, but 4-clause BSD.
> >> >> > The NSS source is not licensed under GPL, but under MPL/GPL/LGPL. The
> >> >> > resulting binaries are licensed under whatever license is compatible,
> >> >> > which would probably be LGPL/MPL (though I'm not entirely sure for MPL).
> >> >> > That doesn't change the fact that the source is still MPL/GPL/LGPL
> >> >> > (except for dbm and a few other things), and that as such, you can use
> >> >> > some parts of nss in e.g.  GPL projects.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > I've always thought that the copyright file in binary packages
> >> >> > containing information about the copyright of the source was not the
> >> >> > best thing to do. We have here a specific case where it is confusing at
> >> >> > best. Not illegal.
> >> >>
> >> >> Yes but we could avoid this pitfall if we update the dbm file in order
> >> >> to be compatible with gpl. They are already released as a 3 BSD...
> >> >>
> >> >> Please improve this situation
> >> >
> >> > The situation would need to be improved if nss was gpl only. It is not
> >>
> >>
> >> Some GPL program link against libnss and it fail license test.
> >
> > Do these GPL programs mention they use dbm ? If not, they comply to the
> > license.
> 
> They MUST mention it per clause 1 et 2 of bsd license.

No they don't. Clause 1 is for the source form of the bsd code, which is
that of dbm inside of nss, and Clause 2 is for the binary for of the bsd
code, which is that of nss. Not of the GPL programs using nss.

Mike