[Fedora-legal-list] License clarification dxflib

Volker Froehlich volker27 at gmx.at
Sun Nov 18 22:21:22 UTC 2012


Dear list readers!

I got no further response from Ribbonsoft. Is the below statement strong
enough to consider dxflib free?

Regards,

Volker Fröhlich


On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 20:51 +0100, Volker Froehlich wrote:
> Dear Andrew!
> 
> Thank you for your prompt response.
> 
> The problem is, the paragraph in question circumscribes the terms of the
> GPL and it fails to do it properly. That's what's causing the problem.
> Besides that, the term "Open Source Edition" is not clarified, as far as
> I could see.
> 
> If the license stated in this file does not apply, can you please remove
> it from the tarball and just include a copy of the FSF license instead?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Volker Fröhlich
> 
> On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 20:36 +0100, Andrew Mustun wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > The dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the
> > GPL v2 without anything to add or remove from that.
> > 
> > The paragraph below is meant to clarify what GPL / Open Source
> > means. If your application is released under the GPL v2, the
> > commercial license contained in file dxflib_commercial_license.txt
> > simply does not apply at all for you.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Andrew Mustun
> > 
> > On 10/31/12 8:24 PM, Volker Froehlich wrote:
> > > Dear RibbonSoft!
> > >
> > > I'm a packager with the Fedora GNU/Linux distribution. I'm packaging
> > > SAGA GIS (https://sourceforge.net/projects/saga-gis/), which uses
> > > dxflib.
> > >
> > > I read that the "Open Source Edition" of dxflib was licensed under the
> > > terms of GPL version 2. While this is clearly stated in the headers of
> > > the source code, the file dxflib_commercial_license.txt causes us
> > > headache.
> > >
> > > """
> > > NOTE: dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the
> > > GPL and not under this Agreement. If Licensee has, at any time,
> > > developed all (or any portions of) the Application(s) using RibbonSoft's
> > > publicly licensed dxflib Open Source Edition, Licensee must comply
> > > with RibbonSoft's requirements and license such Application(s)
> > > (or any portions derived there from) under the terms of the Free
> > > Software Foundation's GNU General Public License version 2 (the "GPL") a
> > > copy of which is located at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC1
> > > (i.e., any Product(s) and/or parts, components, portions thereof
> > > developed using GPL licensed software, including dxflib Open Source
> > > Edition, must be licensed under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL-based
> > > source code must be made available upon request).
> > > """
> > >
> > > Tom Callaway of Red Hat found this statement was not in line with the
> > > GPL and therefore non-free:
> > >
> > > http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/legal/2011-October/001734.html
> > >
> > > It'd be great if we could work this out together. A clear license
> > > situation would allow to include dxflib in Fedora and other
> > > distributions that care about software freedom.
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > >
> > > Volker Fröhlich
> > >
> > >
> > 
> 
> 
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