Re: Guile 1.8 / Viper System Interface

[David Kastrup]

Michael Tiedtke <address@hidden> writes:

> On 29/06/2015 09:55, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Marco Maggi <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> Michael Tiedtke wrote:
>>>
>>>> Today the first successful clean room build of Viper's System
>>>> Interface (still heavily recognizable as Guile 1.8) compiled
>>>> successfully and ran for the first time.
>>> Excuse me, I step in as a foreigner.   If you do an unofficial fork of a
>>> GNU project: are you  not required to change the name  of the project to
>>> comply with the GPL?
>> How do you get that?
>>
>> GUILE 1.8.8 is released under LGPL 2.1.  The respective clause does not
>> call for a renaming of the project.  Here is the section for
>> modification:
>
> Legal can take a break. Justice is not a goddess but only an allegory
> and has to pause once again.
>
> Renaming is the first of many substantial changes and fair use
> considering the original distribution networks.

I said "does not call for".  Of course you can rename your fork any way
you want to.

>>      b) You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices
>>      stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
>
> That's an unfair restriction of fair use considering the "open"
> mechanics of the distribution original distribution networks as well
> as the lack of such notices by the maintainers and distributers
> themselves which are not the original authors.

They signed copyright assignments to the FSF for working on GUILE as
distributed by the FSF, so there is no legal point in separate notices.

At any rate, it's the license.  Abide by it or don't use the software or
risk legal action which can be costly.  Since GUILE is a GNU project,
you are likely also free to use any later version of the LGPL (I have
not checked the respective file headers), and later versions better
accommodate current development and distribution practices.

But it is quite pointless to berate the GUILE list for the licensing
details.  Nobody here is involved with them.

-- 
David Kastrup