[sword-devel] GPL 3 licencing issues

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

Sword library source code has some licencing issues. Different files
have different licence statements. They should be reviewed and
corrected.

The problem is mostly theoretical because nobody really cares - the
library is under GPL and that's that. But there may arise issues later
with GPL 3. Some of you may already know that GPL 2 and 3 are NOT
compatible. That may sound weird but that's how it is. The only thing
which makes them compatible is the copyright notice which is not part of
the licence. If it reads "relased under GPL v 2 or later" it's
compatible. If it reads "released under GPL" it is unclear. If it reads
"released under GPL; see the attached licence" and the GPL v 2 is
attached it is technically GPL 2 only and not compatible with version 3.

Inside Crosswire this is not important because we don't sue ourselves
because of inconsistency. But if and when we use other libraries inside
Sword library and when the frontend projects use many different
libraries this may become an issue.

Most probably we want the Sword licence to be "under GPL v. 2 or any
later version" to secure the widest compatibility possible. Even after
that the library or the frontends can not use two libraries of which one
is under GPL2 only and the other GPL3 only.

  Yours,
	Eeli Kaikkonen (Mr.), Oulu, Finland
	e-mail: eekaikko at mailx.studentx.oulux.fix (with no x)