[copyleft-next] Compatibility with Eclipse Public License.

Mike Linksvayer ml at gondwanaland.com
Wed Aug 8 18:03:19 UTC 2012


On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Richard Fontana
<fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> On 08/08/2012 01:23 PM, Luis Villa wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Richard Fontana
>> <fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
>>> I haven't pushed this to [gitorious] yet, but I have a draft EPL
>>> compatibility provision that says:
>>>    You may Distribute a Derived Work that includes files licensed
>>>    under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 ("EPL"), provided that
>>>    such Distribution complies with the requirements of the
>>>    EPL. The requirement stated in [Distribution: General](b) of
>>>    This License shall be narrowed in scope solely to the extent
>>>    necessary to facilitate this permission.
>>>
>>> A problem with this approach, which is the only one feasible I think,
>>> is it has that unfortunate "stet license cleverness" quality to it.
>>
>> Yes, but that (and definition of "work") aside, it seems reasonable.
>> Would certainly work for MPL, I would think (though can't review it
>> carefully enough right at this moment to be certain).
>
> BTW the reason I didn't even think of an "MPL compatibility provision"
> is because MPL 2.0 and (current) copyleft-next both achieve
> GPLv2+/AGPLv3+ compatibility. But I wonder if there's some value in
> making an EPL provision (if it works out) be an "EPL or MPL" provision.

The provision sounds clever, but I'm not sure I understand its
effects. Is it intended to *not* reduce copyleft-next's copyleft
requirement for derived work to level of EPL (or MPL; and if those
two, why not also LGPL?) but allow including files under those
licenses, to the extent those licenses would allow it, but
copyleft-next would not without this provision? In the case of the EPL
that'd be a derived work which is not a derived work under US law, ie
nobody can say with any certainty whether the provision permits
anything additional in practice?

Mike


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