For Approval: CeCILL

[John.Cowan]

Wilson, Andrew scripsit:

> Given that you explicity allow re-licensing under GPL when a CeCILL-licensed
> work is combined with GPL code -- presumably, even with just
> one line of GPL code -- isn't this
> whole exercise a kind of elaborate licensing fiction?  It is apparently easier to
> re-license CeCILL code as GPL than it is to get a divorce in Las Vegas.  ;-)
> 
> May I suggest that it would be more intellectually honest, and more readily
> comprehensible to the world at large, to simply dual-license your code CeCILL/GPL
> from the time of publication?

It's not the same thing.  Dual-licensing their own code under CeCILL and
GPL would ensure that their original code could be used in GPLed programs,
but modified code not separately dual-licensed under the GPL could not be.
Putting the auto-dual-license provision into the license ensures that
all modified CeCILL code is also GPL-compatible.

This is the same thing that's done by the LGPL -- every piece of LGPLed code,
modified or not, is dual-licensed under the LGPL and the GPL.

> This language, and the equivalent language in 5.3.1 about distribution of
> unmodified Software, appears to obligate Licensees to provide source code
> to the world at large, not just to those who received a distribution of the
> binary from the Licensee, for the entire term of the license.  This is much
> broader in scope and potentially much longer in duration
> than the equivalent obligation to provide source code under GPL.

+1.

> This obligation not to "directly or indirectly infringe" any IP of the
> Holder and/or Contributors is extremely broad, and seemingly not limited
> to IP as embodied in the Software as received by the Licensee.  Is this
> intended as a (stealth) defensive termination clause, should the Licensee
> ever enter into any kind of patent/copyright/trade secret/trademark dispute with
> the Holder or Contributors?  If so, it is probably GPL 2-incompatible, based on
> RMS's comments on the defensive termination clauses of MPL, CPL, and Apache 2.0.

+1


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