Re: D-Bus AFL/GPL issues (was Re: GLib plans for the next cycle)

[Tommi Komulainen <tkomulai gmail com>]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 6:24 PM, Robert McQueen
<robert mcqueen collabora co uk> wrote:
> Havoc Pennington wrote:
>>
>> Nobody has yet explained (to my satisfaction anyway) how the libdbus
>> license has an issue the LGPL does not have. Perhaps we should get
>> Luis or SFLC on the case, but I'm not sure it's worth their time.
>
> My belief is that the problem is that under certain implementations of
> LGPL, the stuff you link the LGPL library to must also be LGPL
> compatible, and that the AFL patent clause is not. The alternative
> interpretation is therefore that you make your LGPL code GPL, and take
> libdbus under the GPL, but this is unacceptable for a proprietary
> application which cannot link GPL libraries.

IANAL etc. This issue was once described to me having to involve
multiple applications linking to libdbus:

* (L)GPL application is incompatible with AFL so libdbus falls under
GPL (as does the application)
* proprietary application is incompatible with GPL so libdbus falls under AFL

Now as long as you're not mixing (L)GPL and proprietary applications
all is fine. However once you mix both you get a system where dbus
license can't satisfy both cases. The argument being that dbus as
distributed/running on a system can have only one license, not "GPL
when used from app A, but AFL when the same library/daemon is used
from app B"

Then again, the system library exception would allow dbus to be AFL
while remaining (L)GPL compatible.


-- 
Tommi Komulainen                                 tommi komulainen iki fi