Re: Is Emacs a GPL'ed library wrt elisp code?

Hi Richard (and others),

I am CC'ing this to the Debian Bug Tracking System, the ilisp mailing
list and the debian-legal list.  I hope that's okay.
Thanks for your reply.


Richard Stallman <[email protected]> wrote:

> Regarding ilisp, I suspect we were not careful enough about studying
> the license and noticing the somewhat-self-contradictory statements
> about price.  We probably and thought it was a simple GPL-compatible
> non-copyleft license.
> 
> As for the more general question, we think that a program that uses
> Emacs facilities needs to be GPL-covered, but a program that just uses
> the Lisp language could have any license--it is not affected by the
> license of Emacs. 

So since ilisp is using GPL'ed Emacs facilities, it doesn't currently
have a valid license.  This should get fixed within a few months.

>                    Of course, if it is not free we should not be
> distributing it at all.
> 
>       I filed a bug report[4] against the package which
>     started a discussion going.  The current ilisp developers are likely all
>     agreeable to changing the license.
> 
> That is good.  This part is ambiguous too:
> 
>         o  Any work distributed or published that in whole or in part
>            contains or is a derivative of this software or any part 
>            thereof is subject to the terms of this agreement. 
> 
> It could mean that these conditions must be the only ones that apply
> to such a larger work, or it could mean that these conditions must
> apply but others may apply as well.  The latter is GPL-compatible;
> the former is not.
> 
> Could you show me what new license they are considering?

The GPL.  They are proceeding with a good-faith effort to contact every
past and current contributor to ask if anyone has objections to a
license change.  They also have another goal of assigning copyright to
the FSF in order to eventually get the package folded into Emacs.

See
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=1318794&forum_id=5779

Thanks,
-- 
Peter S. Galbraith, Debian Developer          <[email protected]>
GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE  6E68 8170 35FF 799E
6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/

> Envelope-to: [email protected]
> Delivery-date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 13:08:48 -0500
> From: Peter S Galbraith <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Is Emacs a GPL'ed library wrt elisp code? 
> In-Reply-To: Message from Richard Stallman <[email protected]> 
>    of "Wed, 07 Nov 2001 14:04:00 MST." <[email protected]> 
> Organization: Debian GNU/Linux - www.debian.org
> Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 13:08:27 -0500
> 
> Hello Richard,
> 
> I ask you this question a year ago and got the following reply from you:
> 
> Richard Stallman <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> >     Emacs is GPL'ed and not LGPL'ed, yet it can be looked at as a
> >     library.  Say I write some code in elisp intended to run on any
> >     variant of Emacs (I don't whether this point makes a difference
> >     or not).  At what point does this code need to have a GPL
> >     compatible license to order to be distributed with Emacs (say on
> >     a CD) and not break Emacs' license?
> > 
> > Sorry, I can't spare time just now to discuss hypothetical questions.
> > Non-hypothetical issues get priority, and right now they are taking
> > all my time.
> 
> The situation isn't so theoretical anymore.  It turns out that the
> package ilisp[1] isn't licensed under the GPL but yet is distributed by
> the FSF[2].  Its license is basically:
> 
>  Use and copying of this software and the preparation of derivative
>  works based on this software are permitted, so long as the following
>  conditions are met:
>         o  The copyright notice and this entire notice are included intact
>            and prominently carried on all copies and supporting documentation.
>         o  No fees or compensation are charged for use, copies, or
>            access to this software. You may charge a nominal
>            distribution fee for the physical act of transferring a
>            copy, but you may not charge for the program itself. 
>         o  If you modify this software, you must cause the modified
>            file(s) to carry prominent notices (a Change Log)
>            describing the changes, who made the changes, and the date
>            of those changes.
>         o  Any work distributed or published that in whole or in part
>            contains or is a derivative of this software or any part 
>            thereof is subject to the terms of this agreement. The 
>            aggregation of another unrelated program with this software
>            or its derivative on a volume of storage or distribution
>            medium does not bring the other program under the scope
>            of these terms.
>         o  Permission is granted to manufacturers and distributors of
>            lisp compilers and interpreters to include this software
>            with their distribution. 
>  
> I think that the clause "you may not charge for the program itself"
> lands it in Debian's non-free archive[3].  It's not considered free
> software by Debian.  I filed a bug report[4] against the package which
> started a discussion going.  The current ilisp developers are likely all
> agreeable to changing the license.
> 
> Do you think that elisp codes that `require' Emacs GPL'ed modules need
> to be GPL'eg themselves?  Or is Emacs and all its libraries simply
> considered an interpreter, and the license of the elisp code isn't
> relevant (and could even be closed, released only in byte-compiled
> form)?  It would be good to clarify your position on the gnu web pages
> somewhere.
> 
> Refs:
> [1] http://ilisp.sourceforge.net/
> [2] http://www.gnu.org/order/source15.html
> [3] http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/ilisp.html
> [4] http://bugs.debian.org/169243
> 
> Thanks,
> -- 
> Peter S. Galbraith, Debian Developer          <[email protected]>
> GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE  6E68 8170 35FF 799E
> 6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/


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