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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Noatun: Licensing, and a new one
From:       Kevin Forge <forge () myrealbox ! com>
Date:       2001-01-02 15:07:21
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No.  There are enogh licenses out there.  I can see why you would 
object to some existing license However there are really only about 
4 or 5 licenses that matter and all the rest are hiding something.

1. GPL
2. BSD
3. QPL
4. LGPL
5. Shrink-Wrap EULA

The rest are generally different from these only in semantics.  

The GPL might be a bad idea because it's too easy to accidentally
make something incompatible with it.

The BSD License lets others "steal" your code.

The QPL may be incompatible with the GPL ( Still unresolved.  
See GPL above ).

The LGPL is like the GPL but without that singular flaw.

EULA.  Let's not go there.

However your stated purpose of "borrowing code from another
free application licensed under the GPL can only be satisfied by 
using the GPL yourself.  Otherwise you will need express written
consent from each copyright holder of that old code before you 
change it's license.

It doesn't matter if your license is compatible with the GPL or not.  
Only the Author can change the license of existing code.

PS: If you have other plans for your app the the GPL doesn't allow
you are basically screwed.  Unless you can talk the authors into 
a change to the LGPL.  

On Tuesday 02 January 2001 03:39, Charles Samuels wrote:
> Noatun has been under the artistic license for quite a while (it originally
> was under the GPL).  The artistic license is slightly problematic in that
> it isn't GPL-compatible, making it difficult for me to swipe XMMS code ;)
>
> So, I present to you the KDE License.  I name it the KDE license because I
> hope that more KDE applications adopt it.  I also forward this to kde-devel
> as a hint for KAboutData::License_KDE to be added to that enum :)
>
> First, I'm changing the license of libnoatun to this license, so I need
> permission from Neil Stevens, Stefan Westerfeld, Malte Starostik, and
> Nikolas Zimmermann.  All of these have commited to libnoatun
> (kdemultimedia/noatun/noatun/library).  Basically, send me an email saying
> "I allow Noatun to switch to The KDE License," since I'm not waiting in
> line to be sued.
>
> The license is pasted below.  It's based off the zlib license, it's GPL
> compatible, just slightly more restrictive than the X-license (e.g., pretty
> darn free-as-in-speech), and very similar to the BSD license.
>
>
>
> The KDE license:
>
>   This software is provided "as-is", without any express or implied
>   warranty.  In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
>   arising from the use of this software.
>
>   Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
>   including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
>   freely, subject to the following restrictions:
>
>   1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
>      claim that you wrote the original software.  You must take reasonable
>      measures to make this copyright and license notice known to the user.
>   2. The name of a copyright holder shall not be used in advertising or
>      otherwise to promote the sale of this Software or any derived works
>      thereof without prior written authorization of the copyright holder.
>   3. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not
> be misrepresented as being the original software.
>   4. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source
> distribution.

 
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