cosmos72
commented
11 years ago Hello Nikodemus,
I agree, the license is very confusing.
You guessed my intention (almost) correctly: LGPL for new or rewritten code, LGPL+BSD on derived code (i.e. inherited and modified).
The reason is that I cannot remove the existing BSD license from files unless I rewrite them fully: the variant of BSD license used in CL-STM does not allow relicensing, but from what I understand it IS compatible with LGPL (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ModifiedBSD), i.e. code can have simultaneous LGPL + BSD licenses.
Getting the permission from the CL-STM author (Huan Ton-That) to change his BSD code to LGPL would be a better alternative, but I have not been able to contact him yet. I guess I should try harder.
About the inclusion of both COPYING.GPL and COPYING.LGPL in the source tree: I followed literally "How to use GNU licenses for your own software" at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html: it instructs to put both GPL and LGPL license files - if the practice for LGPL software is actually simpler, I will be glad to adapt :)
Equaly confusing is that COPYING.BSD refers to Marco Baringer and not Hoan Ton-That. :) I assume this is just a snafu.
Unluckily not: it's a quirk in BSD "no relicensing" rule. I guess Hoan Ton-That reused some code from Marco Baringer (it.bese.arnesi author) for CL-STM and as a consequence he is stuck with the copy of BSD license coming with arnesi (just like I am stuck with the copy coming with CL-STM), which references its author: Marco Baringer. You can check the license in CL-STM source tree. Or of course it could be a typo in CL-STM licensing.
This also has a nasty side-effect: since CL-STM appears to be derived from arnesi (the license declares that), permission from both authors is needed to change CL-STM license.
Conclusion: my work was much faster thanks to using CL-STM as a starting point, but the license is a mess. I do not wish to release STMX as BSD, as I prefer the GPL licenses family, so the situations screams for a full rewrite of inherited code.
Since STMX is small enough, I will just rewrite the code inherited from CL-STM.
In the meantime I will also keep trying the lighter solution: contact Hoan Ton-That and ask if he agrees to change the license.
nikodemus
Lawyering aside, what's the intention?
If, as I assume, your intention is to have LGPL on all new or rewritten code, and BSD on the inherited code, it would be really nice if they were more clearly separated. (One licence per file would simplify things a lot.)
If the intention is to have everything under LGPL, then a single LICENSE or COPYING file which states that, and then includes text of the original licenses as would clarify things a lot. (Though BSD license used by Huan Ton-That does not permit relicencing, so to remove the BSD-style permissions from their code you'd need to get their permission if you don't have that already.)
I also find inclusion of COPYING.GPL in the tree confusing. Which parts are GPL and which are LGPL? I assume nothing is under GPL, but this is not clear, and really needs to be clarified.
Equaly confusing is that COPYING.BSD refers to Marco Baringer and not Hoan Ton-That. :) I assume this is just a snafu.
Anyways, VERY nice work overall! (Feel free to ignore this license nitpickery, just wanted to let you know that it's sufficiently confusing that I would need to clarification before using this for reals.)