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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Licensing alternative
From:       Kurt Granroth <granroth () kde ! org>
Date:       2000-01-26 16:09:03
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Stefan Westerfeld wrote:
> However, the legal interpretation doesn't necessarily follow what would make
> sense. If any knowledgable person (lawyer) can assure that there is a legal
> term like "implicit permission", and that it does undoubtfully apply to KDE,
> then we have no problem.
> 
> But I would assume that "implicit permission" is something that seems logical
> to people who don't care about law, but isn't something founded in copyright
> law.

Hmm.. there was a long debate somewher (probably slashdot) when the
QPL came out with more then a few lawyers.  The point that came out is
that licenses are a contract between the author and the user and that
they mean whatever the author says.  Specifically, the author cannot
contradict his own license.. if he does, then that part of the license
just doesn't apply.

That is to say, if my license says that I cannot link GPL to QPL yet
my own program does, then clearly that clause is not to be believed.

This is where the "implicit permission" comes in.

> Also note that you can never claim that "implicit permission" is
> also valid on code you just copied from somewhere, as the original
> author doesn't know about that, and consequently couldn't give
> "implicit permission". (Otherwise, Microsoft may as well claim
> "implicit permission" when copying the whole KDE source and using it
> in their software).

Now *this* is true -- mostly.  If your code was already written for
KDE, then the implicit permission is "inherited".  If not, then you
need explicit permission.

> I think applying a three lines fix to the affected sources which has
> no negative impact is the easy way to get out of that. It may be too
> much, but it is at least sufficient to clarify the issue.
 
Okay, as I implied above, I don't think that this is necessary.  We
are already covered legally.  HOWEVER, making implicit explicit can't
hurt in this case.  Adding those three lines would describe what is
already true in ways that everybody can understand.

So I'll go along with this.

If nobody objects, I will start sweeping through KDE changing the GPL
licenses in headers to include that clause (I won't touch LGPL,
Artistic, BSD, X, etc licenses).
-- 
Kurt Granroth            | http://www.granroth.org
KDE Developer/Evangelist | SuSE Labs Open Source Developer
granroth@kde.org         | granroth@suse.com
           KDE -- Putting a Friendly Face on Unix

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