Re: [xml] [libxslt] GPL-licensed file being distributed with MIT-licensed libxslt

[Earnie <earnie users sourceforge net>]

On 10/9/2015 7:51 AM, Mike Dalessio wrote:
> Hi Nick,
>
> Thanks for replying. I personally don't think think it's an issue, either.
>
> But I'm not a lawyer, and some lawyers have noticed and *do* think it's
> a problem, and have reached out to me about it (as I'm a maintainer of
> [Nokogiri][https://github.com/sparklemotion/nokogiri], which
> redistributes libxml2).
>
> Let's imagine there *is* a legal problem -- just so we can determine
> what's possible. In that case, would the libxml2 maintainers consider
> either removing those files, or replacing them with examples that are
> MIT-licensed?

Since we're talking examples, tutorials and what have you, simply remove
them from your distribution.  The examples do not promote themselves to
the library regardless of who is questioning it, lawyer or not.  The
library is wholly separate from the tutorials and do not depend on them.
 If the library was dependent on the examples then the questioning would
be valid.

If you're using code from the examples, tutorials and anything else
licensed with the GPL then the code you distribute (binary and source)
will need to be licensed by the GPL.  This becomes the sticky point
trying to be made; reviewing the GPL code can create a dirty view of
creating code as the creator of that code can become influenced by the
code in the tutorial.  So I agree that the tutorials need to be licensed
with the same license as the library to prevent the dirty view of using
the library.  Note though that this dirty view can also be sticky
regardless of the license of the tutorial and code used from the
tutorial would need to be given proper recognition of the author of the
code and present that portion of your code with the code license.

-- 
Earnie
*I am not a lawyer* but I do understand the complexity of the mix of
licenses.