Re: Meta-question on GPL compliance of this activity

[J Lovejoy <opensource@jilayne.com>]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for this comment. Yes, this is something that has been considered and is being considered. Some statement of the general guidelines we are applying for this work would be helpful for all involved and beyond.  We are working on that, please hold in the meantime.

Thanks,
Jilayne


> On May 21, 2019, at 11:58 AM, Richard Fontana <rfontana@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> I was at the LLW event in Barcelona last month but unfortunately did
> not attend the workshop relating to this activity, so I apologize if
> this is something that has already been considered.
> 
> GPLv2 section 1 says: "You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of
> the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided
> that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an
> appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact
> all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
> warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this
> License along with the Program."
> 
> I have recently heard the argument that replacing a more or less
> standard old-school GNU license notice, or any sort of nonstandard
> pre-SPDX alternative human-oriented notice, with an SPDX license
> identifier string, without explicit permission from the copyright
> holder, complies with this condition, because in substance the SPDX
> string embodies equivalent licensing information (and has benefits of
> its own over the old-school notice). However, more conservative
> interpreters of GPLv2, including some copyright holders, might argue
> otherwise.
> 
> The discovery of GPL notices juxtaposed with warranty disclaimers
> imported from non-GPL licenses, or warranty disclaimers that otherwise
> go beyond what is called out in GPLv2 and the traditional GNU license
> notice, also raises the question of whether this list's work is
> strictly compliant with the quoted language from GPLv2 section 1.
> 
> Have other participants already thought about and addressed these
> sorts of compliance issues?
> 
> Richard