Re: Relicensing Nautilus to GPLv3+

[Carlos Soriano <csoriano protonmail com>]

Hey A. Walton,

Relicensing from gpl2+ (supposed current nautilus) to lgpl2+ (current gtk+) requires agreement of all copyright holders, and the software license is free software one.

Relicensing from gpl3+ requires ecxactly the same process, and both are still free software licenses.

Do you mean something in particular by "more difficult"?

Best regards,

Carlos Soriano

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: Relicensing Nautilus to GPLv3+

Local Time: May 19, 2017 6:29 AM

UTC Time: May 19, 2017 4:29 AM

From: awalton gnome org

To: Ernestas Kulik <ernestask gnome org>

Gnome Release Team <release-team gnome org>, nautilus-list <nautilus-list gnome org>, desktop-devel-list <desktop-devel-list gnome org>

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:01 AM, Ernestas Kulik <ernestask gnome org> wrote:

> (Attempt no. 2, since Geary hates me)

>

> Hi,

>

> As the current licensing situation in Nautilus is quite complicated, I

> and Carlos are planning a move to relicense the entire codebase to

> GPLv3+.

>

> The codebase has files under several licenses: LGPLv2+, GPLv2+ and

> GPLv3+, the latter implicitly making the project be licensed under its

> terms, so our options are quite limited here.

>

> The situation wrt extensions is also not entirely clear, as the

> extension library is LGPLv2+ with Nautilus being GPLv2+, which in turn

> disallows loading non-free extensions. Given the fact that it is not

> meant to be a generic mechanism for loading extensions, I feel like

> relicensing it without much consideration is reasonable.

>

> If there are no objections, we will make the switch in the following

> week, most likely.

My primary objection is not ideological, but practical - relicensing

Nautilus GPLv3+ means that it becomes more difficult to promote code

from Nautilus to Gtk+, which has happened a significant number of

times in the past and I expect it will continue some into the future.

Stacked with the other reasons (plugins, etc), it just doesn't seem

like a very good idea.

-Andrew Walton.

> Regards,

> Ernestas

> _______________________________________________

> desktop-devel-list mailing list

> desktop-devel-list gnome org

> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list

--

nautilus-list mailing list

nautilus-list gnome org

https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list