[sword-devel] Question about Public Domain

[DM Smith]

mmital wrote:
> Thanks. I just wanted to know what are my options if I want to use 
> third party code in my application that is free to use, but is not 
> necessarily under the GPL. The author of this third party component is 
> saying that I can use his free code, but he is not willing to license 
> his code under GPL.

That's a different question altogether. You can license your code under 
GPL and use any 3-rd party code that has a license that is compatible 
with the GPL. The list of compatible licenses differs between v2 and v3.

SWORD is v2 and does not have a clause that allows it to also be used as 
v3 (i.e. the "or later" clause). So the 3-rd party licenses that are 
permissible are those that are compatible with v2.

That said, my opinion as one who is not a lawyer, it is the GPL that 
restricts what is compatible, and (typically) not the 3-rd party. For 
example, v2 is not compatible with Apache licenses (e.g. Lucene), but 
the Lucene folk don't care if a (L)GPL program uses their library. That 
does not put them under any obligation to become GPL.

In Him,
    DM
>  
>
>
>  
> On 3/16/09, *DM Smith* <dmsmith at crosswire.org 
> <mailto:dmsmith at crosswire.org>> wrote:
>
>     mmital wrote:
>
>         Hi,
>          I have been using Alkitab bible study lately. Fantastic piece
>         of software, truly amazing.
>          I also noticed that it is in public domain, while using sword
>         engine that is in GPL v2, and other components that may have
>         their own license
>         (http://www.kiyut.com/products/alkitab/LICENSE-alkitab.txt)
>          My question is: Am I permitted to release future versions of
>         SwordBible under public domain? The reason is that I want to
>         continue to use the sword library that is under GPL, while
>         also making use of third party components that may not be
>         under GPL (with the permissions from their respective
>         copyright holders).
>          Can this be done? Thanks for the clarifications.
>
>     I can't answer for the SWORD library.
>
>     Alkitab Bible Study is public domain and clearly states it does
>     not pertain to any parts of JSword or any other third party
>     library that JSword depends upon. We discussed this on
>     jsword-devel. It was a decision of the JSword development team not
>     to make a big deal out of it. We'd like to keep it that way; that
>     is, not a big deal for Alkitab. (At this point, I think Tonny
>     would go GPL, if we asked him to.)
>
>     In Him,
>       DM
>
>
>
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