Bug 5934

Summary:	Sources use Library GPL, COPYING is from Lesser GPL
Product:	cairomm	Reporter:	Danilo Piazzalunga <danilopiazza>
Component:	General	Assignee:	Murray Cumming <murrayc>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	minor
Priority:	high	Keywords:	licence, patch
Version:	CVS HEAD
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:
Bug Depends on:	5933
Bug Blocks:
Attachments:	COPYING: use the text from the Library GPL 2.0

Description Danilo Piazzalunga 2006-02-18 05:03:48 UTC

The license contained in COPYING is the Lesser GPL (LGPL 2.1), whereas the
sources comment headings state that the software is released under the Library
GPL (LGPL 2.0) or later. This is only a consistence problem, since the two
licenses are, in fact, the same.

I believe that the COPYING file should be updated with the text from LGPL 2.0,
available at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/Licenses/COPYING.LIB-2.0.

Comment 1 Danilo Piazzalunga 2006-02-18 05:07:50 UTC

Created attachment 4657 [details] [review]
COPYING: use the text from the Library GPL 2.0

This patch updates the licensing information. It assumes that the licensing
information from the source files is the correct one.

The dependency on #5933 is needed to make the ChangeLog patch apply cleanly.

Comment 2 Murray Cumming 2006-02-19 02:25:14 UTC

COPYING is automatically generated from the autotools, so tends to include
whatever propagada RMS wants it to. I'm not that bothered but, given a choice,
I'd prefer to call it _Library_ than _Lesser_. It's the same license, and the
purpose of _Lesser_ is just to say "We don't like this even if you do.".

However, I won't give it a moment's thought if you do it the other way around.

Comment 3 Jonathon Jongsma 2006-02-19 05:50:36 UTC

Any opinions on this murray?  It seems that the text of the licenses are
identical, only the names and version numbers are different.  But technically
the 'Lesser GPL' is the successor to the 'Library GPL'.  Should we just include
the Library GPL license or change all of the code comments to reference the
'Lesser GPL'?

Comment 4 Danilo Piazzalunga 2006-02-21 03:29:24 UTC

For some strange reason, I didn't receive your comment by email. 

(In reply to comment #2)
> COPYING is automatically generated from the autotools, so tends to include
> whatever propagada RMS wants it to.

Just tested this with automake 1.4: it is automatically copied only if it is
missing, otherwise the autotools do not touch it[1], and it can be safely
updated/modified/customized: see for example Cairo's COPYING :-)

[1] Side note: usually LGPL'd projects contain COPYING.LIB, but automake 1.4 is
dumb enough to bring its own COPYING even when COPYING.LIB is present.

> I'd prefer to call it _Library_ than _Lesser_. It's the same license

Yes, and since (I believe) it's the source that matters, the software is already
under the Library GPL. Correcting COPYING is only a matter of consistency.

Comment 5 Jonathon Jongsma 2006-02-21 03:36:03 UTC

(I didn't get murray's response via email either -- thus the question directed
to him after he had already replied.  I should really read more closely)

That sounds fine to me.  I'll commit with the 'Library' license just to make
things consistent.

Comment 6 Jonathon Jongsma 2006-02-21 16:27:58 UTC

committed to CVS.  Thanks.

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