Episode 0x09: Copyleft, -or-later, and Basics of Compatibility

<p> <a href="https://faif.us/cast-media/FaiF_0x09_Copyleft-or-later.ogg"><img alt="[Direct download of cast in Ogg/Vorbis format]" src="https://faif.us/static/img/cast/audio_ogg_button.png"/></a> <a href="https://faif.us/cast-media/FaiF_0x09_Copyleft-or-later.mp3"><img alt="[Direct download of cast in MP3 format]" src="https://faif.us/static/img/cast/audio_mp3_button.png"/></a> </p> <p> <p><a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley</a> and <a href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org/about/team/#karen">Karen</a> discuss types of copyleft generally and introduce the basics of license compatibility and -or-later clauses.</p> </p> <h3>Show Notes:</h3> <h4>Segment 0 (00:38)</h4> <ul> <li>This show discusses <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft">copyleft</a> and basic issues of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License_compatibility">license compatibility</a> (04:09)</li> <li>Karen mentioned an episode of the old <cite>Software Freedom Law Show</cite>, <a href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2009/mar/03/0x08/">Episode 0x08</a>, where Bradley and Karen discussed selecting a FLOSS license and what the various options are. (04:45)</li> <li>license compatibility 06:28 <li>Bradley incorrectly said that the original Emacs license didn't have the word <q>General</q> in it. However, the other explanations appear to be correct. <a href="http://free-soft.org/gpl_history/">There's a useful history page that someone wrote about the history of GPL</a>. It appears the non-general GNU copylefts existed from 1984-1988. (06:57)</li> <li>Karen noted that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License">Library GPL was renamed to the Lesser GPL</a> which happened in 1999. (09:30)</li> <li>Bradley mentioned that when he and RMS worked on the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/license.html">GNU Classpath Exception</a>, Bradley suggested it be called the Least GPL. (10:38)</li> <li>GPL doesn't have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_of_law_clause">choice of law</a> clause. If another copyleft does, it surely is incompatible with the GPL. (14:17)</li> <li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html#section13">AGPLv3 &sect; 13</a> and <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html#section13">GPLv3 &sect; 13</a> explicitly make themselves compatibility with each other, which Bradley calls <q>compatibility by fiat</q>. (15:40)</li> <li>Karen mentioned that the <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html#section-13">Mozilla Public License &sect; 13</a> has a section about multiple licensed code (16:50).</li> <li>Bradley mentioned that Mozilla Firefox uses a <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/">combinatorial license: (GPL|LGPL|MPL)</a>, which is a disjunctive tri-license. (19:00).</li> <li>Bradley mentioned that the old <cite>Software Freedom Law Show</cite> <a href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2009/sep/29/0x17/">Episode 0x17</a> discussed compatibility of permissively licensed software and copylefted software. (20:22)</li> <li><a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html">Apache Software License 2.0</a> was likely the first FLOSS license to have an explicit patent licensing provision (23:40)</li> <li>Bradley and Karen discussed the fact that -only vs. -or-later are options with the GPL, while they are not with other copylefts, such as CC-By-SA. (30:11)</li> </ul> <hr width="80%"/> <p>Send feedback and comments on the cast to <a href="mailto:[email protected]">&lt;[email protected]&gt;</a>. You can keep in touch with <a href="https://faif.us">Free as in Freedom</a> on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by <a href="http://identi.ca/conservancy">following Conservancy on identi.ca</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/conservancy">and Twitter</a>.</p> <p>Free as in Freedom is produced by <a href="http://danlynch.org/blog/">Dan Lynch</a> of <a href="http://danlynch.org/">danlynch.org</a>. Theme music written and performed by <a href="http://www.miketarantino.com">Mike Tarantino</a> with <a href="http://www.charliepaxson.com">Charlie Paxson</a> on drums.</p> <p><a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" hspace=10 /></a> The content of <span xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Sound" rel="dc:type">this audcast</span>, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0)</a>. </p>