[copyleft-next] copyleft-next commit b2f0c69e - combining permissive license content

Luis R. Rodriguez mcgrof at do-not-panic.com
Fri May 17 13:49:40 UTC 2013


I got a question regarding this commit:

commit b2f0c69e5fc1ec37cb787a9981154630b09e8e0d
Author: Richard Fontana <fontana2012 at gmail.com>
Date:   Tue Nov 20 10:52:53 2012 -0500

    Clarify language of section 5 (Distributing Derived Works)

diff --git a/Drafts/copyleft-next b/Drafts/copyleft-next
index 88addc2..e10119f 100644
--- a/Drafts/copyleft-next
+++ b/Drafts/copyleft-next
@@ -90,10 +90,10 @@ THIS IS A DRAFT. DO NOT USE AS A LICENSE.

 5. Distributing Derived Works.

-   You may Distribute a Derived Work, provided that you license the
-   entire Derived Work under this License, and include prominent
-   notice of such licensing. This condition may not be avoided through
-   such means as separate Distribution.
+   If you Distribute a Derived Work, you must license the entire
+   Derived Work as a whole under this License, with prominent notice
+   of such licensing. This condition may not be avoided through such
+   means as separate Distribution of portions of the Derived Work.

 6. Direct Licensing.

Today's v0.3.0 added the GPL option too, so today's paragraph 3 reads:

3. Conditions for Distributing Derived Works; Outbound GPL Compatibility

   If You Distribute a Derived Work, You must license the entire Derived
   Work as a whole under this License, with prominent notice of such
   licensing. This condition may not be avoided through such means as
   separate Distribution of portions of the Derived Work. You may
   additionally license the Derived Work under the GPL, so that the
   recipient may further Distribute the Derived Work under either this
   License or the GPL.

The GPL allows for GPL-compatible work to be integrated into it. In a
larger GPL project this allows for example say a group that wants to
share code with the BSD family to license code under a permissive
GPL-compatible license, and then through usage of things like the DCO
maintain it under a permissive license. Then portions that are
copyleft could be extracted by the BSD folks and they could go live
happy in their permissive license world.

Does the above paragraph prevent this type of sharing ? If so does the
option to re-license to GPL allow for it?

  Luis


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