Re: [GtkGLExt] API changes for the next major gtkglext release (glext)

[Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 freenet de>]

On 01/11/2010 04:38 PM, Mukund Sivaraman wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 02:51:06PM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>    
> > On 01/11/2010 01:32 PM, Mukund Sivaraman wrote:
> >      
> > > On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 01:36:47AM -0500, Arc Riley wrote:
> > >        
> > > > There is no license issue.  GLEW is under the BSD, at worse you include the
> > > > BSD boilerplate in the header and copy/modify their headers.  It's fully
> > > > compatible with both v2 and v3 of the LGPL.
> > > >          
> > > We cannot combine code that has a similar license to the BSD license
> > > (non-copyleft), with LGPL licensed (copyleft) code.
> > >        
> > Most BSD licenses are compatible with the [L]GPL, i.e. such kind of
> > code could be relicensed using the [L]GPL as an "umbrella license".
> >
> > Whether we could do so would require careful examination of these
> > BSD licensed pieces of code, because some BSD licenses are
> > considered non-free (Cf. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLCompatibleLicenses).
> >      
> I'm not a lawyer.
Neither am I, .... it's just that I am long enough into OSS and involved 
into major projects doing so to be pretty sure about it ;)

> This is my interpretation of the license as it
> applies to the generated wrappers that we distribute under the LGPL.
> The generated wrappers are not a verbatim copy of the published ext
> headers, but a derived work.  I am not sure if we can simply take
> something under a BSD-like license and re-distribute it under LGPL.
>    
May-be there is a misunderstanding?

Let me try to elaborate: One can't "relicense" BSD code in the sense of 
"replacing their license with the [L]GPL", but many of 
BSD-ishly-licensed files can be added to [L]GPL'ed works and the "whole 
works" be licensed under the [L]GPL.

It would mean the "package as a whole" would be [L]GPL'ed ("umbrella"), 
because the [L]GPL is more restrictive license than most BSD-licenses, 
while individual files inside of the package would still carry their 
individual BSDish, [L]GPL or else licenses.

Ralf