[Haskell-cafe] Re: ANN: hakyll-0.1

[Robert Greayer]

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Robert Greayer <robgreayer at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The crux here is that the source code of hakyll, released on hackage, is
> not a derivative of Pandoc (it contains, as far as I understand it, no
> Pandoc source code).  A compiled executable *is* a derivative of Pandoc, so
> anyone who *distributes* a compiled executable would need to make *all* the
> source available under the GPL (including the hakyll source).  Since the
> hakyll package is released under BSD3, this would be allowed (AIUI, IANAL).
>

Not to belabor the point (I hope), but consider the following situation --
if the current version of Pandoc, 1.2.1, were released under BSD3, not GPL,
it would be obvious that the current version of hakyll could be released as
BSD3 as well.  After said hakyll release, the Pandoc maintainer would be
perfectly within his rights to release an API compatible 1.2.2 version of
Pandoc, this time licensed under the GPL.  People installing hakyll with
cabal might now be building a version of hakyll containing both GPL and BSD3
code.  This is not under either author's control, and is perfectly
allowable.  If the person downloading chooses to redistribute the hakyll
executable he's built, he must be aware of and comply with his
responsibilities under the GPL, but those would be his responsibilities, not
those of the original author of hakyll.  (AIUI -- IANAL).

(If hakyll had been released under a GPL-incompatible license -- EPL, for
example -- then the person downloading hakyll and building the executable
could *not* distribute the executable he built.  He could use it for his own
purposes, but not distribute it.  This is the implication of GPL
incompatibility.  As I Understand It.)
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