[Haskell-cafe] GPL answers from the SFLC (WAS: Re: ANN: hakyll-0.1)

[John Meacham]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2010 at 12:29:15PM +0000, Malcolm Wallace wrote:
>>> Background: X is a library distributed under the terms of the GPL. Y 
>>> is another library which calls external functions in the API of X, 
>>> and requires X to compile.  X and Y have different authors.
>>>
>>> 1) Can the author of Y legally distribute the *source* of Y under a  
>>> non-GPL license, such as the 3-clause BSD license or the MIT license?
>
> I believe the answer you got from SFLC ("no") contradicts what the  
> authors of the GPL say about this case.  viz:
>
>     http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL
>

Yes, to my knowledge what the SFLC said is also incorrect. Perhaps they
just erred on the side of 'just GPL it'. In any case, I wouldn't want
cabal/hackage to worry about such things for random uploaded packages,
it can't know if the GPL licenses have special exceptions or whatnot.
Unless of course someone where to write a formal combinator
language for expressing legal contracts.. :).

        John

-- 
John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈ - http://notanumber.net/