Re: Licensing and the library version of git

On 7/28/06, Shawn Pearce [off-list ref] wrote:

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Hi,

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Shawn Pearce wrote:

quoted

[...] as the GPL is incompatible with the Sun JRE runtime lirbary.

This is not true. You can legally write and run GPLed software on the JRE
runtime library.

BTW I found an Eclipse plugin which is GPLed:

http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/Web_Links-index-req-viewlink-cid-651.html

Thanks.  I did a little research on it myself after reading your
email. I turned up the following two pages from the FSF:

  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InterpreterIncompat
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html

Both suggest that I can license everything under the GPL but provide
exclusions to allow users to run the code against its dependencies
which aren't GPL'd:

  - the end-user may 'link' the code against any Java runtime library
    of their choice;

  - the end-user may 'link' the code against any Eclipse platform
    or derivative of their choice;

So given that I'm seriously considering changing the license to
GPLv2 for the next version.

Using the GPL plus your own exceptions creates another new license
which is a pain for everyone involved. Why not just use the standard
version with exceptions, the LGPL. The LGPL already allows the two
exceptions listed.

I don't believe there is any legal way to link GPL code into a Java
app since there are no free Java runtimes. This includes both C
libraries and Java code.

GPL is great for a kernel, but it runs into difficulties in user space
where there are hundreds of historical licenses that it can't mix
with. The viral concept only works if the target app has the ability
to relicense which is usually impossible for existing code.

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com