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List:       lyx-devel
Subject:    The LyX licence
From:       Angus Leeming <leeming () lyx ! org>
Date:       2005-02-24 20:36:38
Message-ID: 200502242036.38403.leeming () lyx ! org
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Hi, Ruurd. It appears that I forgot you from the original mail shot 
(you're not listed in CREDITS which is something we should fix ASAP.)

Dear all,

please excuse the personal email, but I'm trying to do something about 
the messy state of the LyX licence and need your help.

LyX is currently licenced under the GPL with a huge hole blowing it 
wide apart so that it could be linked against the closed source 
XForms library. See http://www.lyx.org/about/license.php3. Legal 
opinion has it that this exception does not apply only to the XForms 
library. Instead, anything and everything is allowed to link against 
the LyX source code, defeating the whole point and purpose of the 
GPL. Moreover, the exception is no longer needed as XForms (and 
indeed Qt) are available under the GPL.

To make a messy situation even messier, it's not even certain whether 
the current license is valid at all, as the necessary permissions may 
not have been obtained before the change was made to the original 
GPL.

In light of all this, I'm asking whether I can have your permission to 
add your names to http://www.lyx.org/blanket-permission.txt:

"The following people hereby grant permission to licence their 
contributions to LyX under the Gnu General Public Licence, version 2 
or later."

so that we can have a permanent record of those people who have 
contributed code to LyX and who are happy for this code to be 
licenced under the GPL.

Kind regards,
Angus

ps, if you reply to lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org, we'll have a permanent 
record of your response.
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