[jsword-devel] Alkitab Bible Study 0.9 released

[DM Smith]

I too am not a lawyer. But I think that Tonny has the right spirit.

JSword and Common are LGPL and BibleDesktop is GPL.

This means that executables that use just jsword.jar and/or jsword- 
common.jar can be liberally licensed or put in the PD. Tonny has done  
this.

bibledesktop.jar requires that an executable be licensed as GPL. Tonny  
has done this.

The other jars (e.g. lucene) have their own license. None of them are  
(L)GPL. Turns out that Lucene's Apache license is not compatible with  
(L)GPL v2, but is with v3. Same is true with other Apache code we use.  
Someday, we'll add the "or later" clause to be fully compliant.

Further, Tonny has not obscured the licensing of our code.

I agree that he should mark each of his files as PD. I think the  
suggestion of making the program GPL as a whole is a good one.

The GPL v2 is a distribution license. The heart of it is that complete  
source is made available.

-- DM

On Jun 5, 2008, at 4:13 AM, Peter von Kaehne wrote:

> Ok I am not a lawyer either, but I think I got a clear enough
> understanding of the matter.
>
> 1) Your code is your code. You can do and licence it as you like as  
> long
> as it is compatible with any other code you combine it with. And even
> then you can dual/triple licence it etc etc.
>
> 2) GPL code inside a programme distributed as a unity (which Alkitab  
> is)
> trumps for the overall programme. And if it can not trump then there  
> is
> a problem as the bits might not be compatible, licensing wise.
>
> So my suggestion would be that you put a PD declaration onto each
> individual source file of your front end, but use an overall licence
> text as GPL (stating that several sub files are under different  
> licences
> or public domain.
>
> Doing it this way should keep even Stallman happy. It would clarify  
> that
> you as a recipient can do two things:
>
> 1) You can take the whole programme as it stands and distribute/ 
> alter it
> as you like as long as you keep publishing the source code and  
> generally
> fulfil GPL requirements
>
> 2) You can rip the source code apart and pick out only the bits
> published under PD and do with those bits as you like + redistribute
> those bits under any new licence chosen.
>
> Hope this is clear enough.
>
> Peter
>
> Tonny Kohar wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 6:14 AM, Ben Morgan <benpmorgan at gmail.com>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Public domain, however, is not a license - it is releasing all  
>>> claims to
>>> copyright on the code. This means anyone can do whatever they like  
>>> with it.
>>>
>>
>> It is interesting "Public Domain is not a license", I didn't know
>> that. But my intentions is correct, to release all claims to the code
>> and other can do whatever they like with it.
>>
>> So what do you think I should put on the wording on the website and
>> the program license text. Currently it is stated as Public Domain
>> license in regards of my intention (see above)
>>
>> Note: I am not a lawyer and legal/license is not my expertise area.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Tonny Kohar
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> jsword-devel mailing list
> jsword-devel at crosswire.org
> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/jsword-devel