5:57 p.m.
I'm working my way up to getting FreeCAD[1] submitted to RPM Fusion
but I need some input on how the licenses work.
I now have OCE approved and built, which uses a non-free license[2].
Both FreeCAD and SMESH[3] are GPL licensed individually but they also
both link against OCE.
In the spec file, which license or other verbage should I include?
Thanks,
Richard
[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/Open_CASCADE_Technology_Public_L...
[3] https://sourceforge.net/projects/salomesmesh/
8:10 p.m.
Am 27.12.11 18:57, schrieb Richard Shaw:
I now have OCE approved and built, which uses a non-free license[2].
Both FreeCAD and SMESH[3] are GPL licensed individually but they also
both link against OCE.
If you want to link a GPL'ed application agains a non-free library the
license of the application needs
an exception to do so. Because you told, that the original upstream has
linked FreeCAD agains this non-free
library, I assume, that upstream has declared such an exception.
So the license tag shoud be 'GPL with exception' and the package can go
to the free branch
of rpmfusion.
Best Regards:
Jochen Schmitt
10:25 a.m.
Hi,
On 12/27/2011 09:10 PM, Jochen Schmitt wrote:
Am 27.12.11 18:57, schrieb Richard Shaw:
> I now have OCE approved and built, which uses a non-free license[2].
> Both FreeCAD and SMESH[3] are GPL licensed individually but they also
> both link against OCE.
>
>
If you want to link a GPL'ed application agains a non-free library the
license of the application needs
an exception to do so. Because you told, that the original upstream has
linked FreeCAD agains this non-free
library, I assume, that upstream has declared such an exception.
Well they have done that at least implicitly I guess, it would be good
to contact them and ask for an explicit exception.
So the license tag shoud be 'GPL with exception' and the
package can go
to the free branch
of rpmfusion.
That should be non-free branch, if a package depends on other non-free
packages it must go to non-free itself.
Regards,
Hans
2:01 p.m.
First of all, thanks for the replies, both of you!
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 4:25 AM, Hans de Goede <j.w.r.degoede(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/27/2011 09:10 PM, Jochen Schmitt wrote:
>
> Am 27.12.11 18:57, schrieb Richard Shaw:
>>
>> I now have OCE approved and built, which uses a non-free license[2].
>> Both FreeCAD and SMESH[3] are GPL licensed individually but they also
>> both link against OCE.
>>
>>
> If you want to link a GPL'ed application agains a non-free library the
> license of the application needs
> an exception to do so. Because you told, that the original upstream has
> linked FreeCAD agains this non-free
> library, I assume, that upstream has declared such an exception.
>
Well they have done that at least implicitly I guess, it would be good
to contact them and ask for an explicit exception.
There's an ongoing discussion/war on their forums about the
non-freeness of OCC/OCE. I'm trying to decide if I should put in my
$0.02 or just wait for the dust to settle.
> So the license tag shoud be 'GPL with exception' and the
package can go
> to the free branch
> of rpmfusion.
That should be non-free branch, if a package depends on other non-free
packages it must go to non-free itself.
Thanks for the clarification. I thought it would go into non-free as well.
Richard
3:08 p.m.
Richard Shaw wrote:
There's an ongoing discussion/war on their forums about the
non-freeness of OCC/OCE. I'm trying to decide if I should put in my
$0.02 or just wait for the dust to settle.
The requirements of the OpenCASCADE license (in particular, the ban on
commercial use) are most definitely NOT compatible with the GPL, so FreeCAD
upstream must declare an exception if they want to comply with their own
license (and they should, if they want their software to be legally
redistributable by others).
Kevin Kofler
7:20 p.m.
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at> wrote:
The requirements of the OpenCASCADE license (in particular, the ban
on
commercial use) are most definitely NOT compatible with the GPL, so FreeCAD
upstream must declare an exception if they want to comply with their own
license (and they should, if they want their software to be legally
redistributable by others).
Kevin,
I'm a bit confused. Which part of the license bans commercial use of OCC?
On a side note I found the following exchange on the OCC list that was
very informative:
http://www.opencascade.org/org/forum/thread_15859/
Thanks,
Richard
12:49 a.m.
Richard Shaw wrote:
I'm a bit confused. Which part of the license bans commercial use
of OCC?
Reading it again, that's indeed not the issue.
You need to find out why the license was considered non-Free by Fedora.
Whatever requirement caused that determination is almost certainly also
incompatible with the GPL. I am no lawyer and I can't find the offending
requirement at first glance, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Kevin Kofler
12:53 a.m.
I wrote:
You need to find out why the license was considered non-Free by
Fedora.
Whatever requirement caused that determination is almost certainly also
incompatible with the GPL. I am no lawyer and I can't find the offending
requirement at first glance, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
PS: Oh, and even if the license were free, chances are it'd still be
incompatible with the GPL due to wording differences. I think an exception
is unavoidable unless OpenCASCADE upstream (and if you use the community
edition, also every single contributor to that fork) relicenses their code
to the GPL or a GPL-compatible license. (Note that every single contributor
to FreeCAD needs to agree to the exception. Yes, licenses are a PITA.)
Kevin Kofler
2:40 p.m.
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at> wrote:
Richard Shaw wrote:
> I'm a bit confused. Which part of the license bans commercial use of OCC?
Reading it again, that's indeed not the issue.
You need to find out why the license was considered non-Free by Fedora.
Whatever requirement caused that determination is almost certainly also
incompatible with the GPL. I am no lawyer and I can't find the offending
requirement at first glance, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I'll try to summarize the reason but I think the link that I provided,
which includes input from Tom "Spot", has the reasoning. Basically the
wording differences as you noted and the fact that it requires
contributions to be given back to OCC (though they dispute this) are
the main reasons. The OCC group said that the requirement that code
changes be given back to them is really unenforceable because it's not
in the actual license body, just in the "pre" license text.
I'm not sure when or if it will happen but they are opening up
development and are trying to convince their management to allow a
switch to a more FOSS licenses, perhaps dual licensing under a GPL
license and their proprietary license.
Richard
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8 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Hans de Goede -
Jochen Schmitt -
Kevin Kofler -
Richard Shaw