[Savannah-hackers] Re: Femlisp registration

[Mathieu Roy]

Nicolas Neuss <address@hidden> a tapoté :

> Mathieu Roy <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm evaluating the project you submitted for approval in Savannah.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Thank you very much for your work.
> 
> > Please register your project again including a URL
> > (could be temporary) where we can find the source code.
> > The description you give during project registration will be
> > read by Savannah administrators and not by the general public;
> > if you are concerned with privacy, you can
> > send me a copy of the code by e-mail,
> > 
> > We would like to look at your source code, even if it is still
> > not functional, to help you fix potential legal issues which
> > would be harder to correct after the project gets approved.
> > For example, to release your program properly under the GPL,
> > you should write copyright notices and copying permission statements
> > at the beginning of every source code file,
> > as explained in http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html.
> 
> I am just at the beginning with adding such copyright notices to each file.
> Here is one question, though, which I should better know before I start.  I
> have permissions of my university to release the code under either GPL and
> FreeBSD license.  I have thought about a scheme which might render it
> possible to keep it that way even with additional contributions and which I
> have stated in the file LICENSE which I attach to this message.
> 
> What do you think about it?  Is this too complicated or otherwise
> problematic?  

Dual licensing is always possible, but there not so much point, I
think, to choose FreeBSD/GPL. 



> Maybe the FreeBSD license would be a better choice from the
> beginning.

You should read the followinf, about the LGPL (which is close to a
mBSD) http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html 

> 
> 
> > Please register your project once more with the changes mentioned
> > above.  The way we handle pending projects makes it difficult to
> > keep track of projects that have been answered but have not been
> > approved yet, so we erase them and we ask you to register the
> > project again every time some change has to be done to the
> > registration, and users might have to register their projects
> > several times.  Thank you for your understanding.
> > 
> > Some users find it useful to use the big re-registration URL provided in
> > the acknowledgment e-mail you received after registration.
> > 
> > Regards,
> 
> I will reregister when I have put suitable copyright notices in every file.
> Here is a second question: would something like the following notice in
> every file be sufficient?
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copyright (C) 2003 Nicolas Neuss, University Heidelberg.
> 
> This file is part of Femlisp.  For licensing terms see the file LICENSE in
> the Femlisp main directory.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> This would save disk space (:-)

Not so much.

> and also make it possible to switch to FreeBSD easily

You point out the problem: the file license can change but if you
release a file someday as GPL, it must stay GPL for any person who got
it as GPL.
So it must be included in the file when you release it. To be legally
acceptable, a license notice must clearly state which license it is
about.


> . (I'm quite sure that I will have to do this sooner or later,
> because the GPL is too restrictive for use in Lisp environments
> where it should be able to interoperate with commercial components,
> e.g. commercial Lisps.)

Note that commercial does not mean proprietary. 
Free Software means that users have certain freedoms; it does
not mean zero price.  "Commercial" means "associated with
business"; a commercial program may be free or non-free,
depending on its license.  So it is a mistake to treat
"free" and "commercial" as contraries.  When a business
develops free software, that is free commercial software.




-- 
Mathieu Roy
 
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