[Savannah-hackers] Re: FS platform - compete or extend?

[Loic Dachary]

Marco Demarmels writes:
 > Merci de nouveau, Loic
 > 
 > I'd like to continue the discussion: ok, let's look at "GPL compatible" 
 > licenses. Is there a definition of "compatible" that you guys adhere to? 
 > I'd like to find out whether we can share your view completely.

        You'll find a list of GPL compatible licenses at 

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

        Compatibility is determined by a study of both license. The 
GNU project and the FSF do this for the GPL. It should also be done for
other licenses (is MPL compatible with Apache License for instance ?)
but nobody is apparently willing to do the job. This is unfortunate since
it makes the work of mixing various Free Software components with each
other hazardous from a legal point of view. 

        Finding out that two licenses are incompatible is generally a lot
easier than finding out that two licenses are compatible. Two licenses
are incompatible if their terms contradict each other. You only need to
spot one contradiction to declare the license incompatible. Two licenses
are compatible if none of their terms contradict each other under any
circumstances. You need to think of all possible cases to declare 
compatibility and doing so requires advices from a lawyer, most of the
time. 

 > In a positive case, what could we expect from you guys at savannah to 
 > get as a head start with our tiny platform? The software is GPL, so we 
 > can download it and tinker with it on our own.

        I'm not sure to understand. Could you please rephrase your question ?

 > Best regards
 > Marco
 > 
 > Loic Dachary wrote:
 > > Marco Demarmels writes:
 > >  > Dear Loic
 > >  > 
 > >  > Thank you for your response. We are long-time supporters of the Free 
 > >  > Software Movement and we appreciate and support its philosophy.
 > >  > 
 > >  > What we would not like to do, though, is to exclude any volunteer work 
 > >  > that does not exactly comply with the ideals of GNU/FSF, that is: we 
 > >  > would like to create a platform for projects published under several 
 > >  > possible licenses, not only (L)GPL, even though we do prefer (L)GPL. 
 > > The 
 > >  > only thing in this direction that appears reasonable to me is to stress 
 > >  > our preference for (L)GPL licensed projects.
 > > 
 > >    Savannah accepts licenses that are not (L)GPL. What we do, however,
 > > is to accept only licenses that are compatible with (L)GPL. It does not
 > > make a lot of sense to host projects that are released under incompatible
 > > licenses since they cannot be mixed together. Because of the license 
 > > incompatibilities they cannot cooperate together.
 > > 
 > >  > (Imagine us asking for money from the authorities, saying: "we want to 
 > >  > build a Swiss platform for volunteer software projects, but we allow 
 > >  > only projects licensed under the terms of (L)GPL". Not convincing, I'd 
 > > say.)
 > > 
 > >    Indeed, that would be too restrictive. However, I think it makes a
 > > lot of sense to tell them that you host projects that have compatible 
 > > licensing
 > > terms. They will surely understand that hosting two libraries that cannot
 > > be linked together is kind of poor.
 > > 
 > >  > Could we find a consensus on that?
 > >  > 
 > >  > Are you in the position to disclose any figures on the total operations 
 > >  > costs of savannah? I'd be glad to have a good estimate to present at 
 > > the 
 > >  > general assembly.
 > > 
 > >    Bandwidth (~1Mb/s at most) and hardware (~$5 000) are donated.
 > > Volunteer work represents at most 2 full time people, all included.
 > > 
 > >    Cheers,
 > > 
 >