[copyleft-next] Compatibility with Eclipse Public License.

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Wed Aug 8 22:10:43 UTC 2012


On 08/08/2012 02:03 PM, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> 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? 

Er... yes, I think you have it right. Here it may be useful to think
of my traditionalist use of "strong" when speaking of strong copyleft
(I see that Luis Villa is also using it more broadly, much like
Bradley has). I am diminishing strong copyleft only as much as
necessary to permit CN/EPL combinations that would otherwise comprise
one unit of CN copyleft scope, if you will.

It's somewhat like GPLv3/AGPLv3 cross-compatibility, but that involved
provisions in both licenses.

My avoidance of LGPL is partly for the same reason I stated for my
avoidance of MPL: these licenses (now) have GPLv2+/AGPL3+
compatibility, so it seems less important, whereas EPL remains
GPL-incompatible.

> 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? 

That is *probably* right. I may need to provide a more detailed answer
to this question, though.

- RF




More information about the copyleft-next mailing list