License Committee Report for July 2007

[John Cowan]

Wilson, Andrew scripsit:

> How -- exactly -- do you propose to relicense the entire
> Combined Work under GPLv2 if all you have is an LGPLv3
> license for the library in question?  You are not allowed
> to relicense any of the LGPLv3-covered portions, except to
> remove any section 7 additional permissions.

No relicensing is required.  When I create a combined work with some
components under the GPLv2 license and others under the 3-clause BSD
license, I am compelled to license the combined work as a whole under
the GPLv2.  I am not thereby *relicensing* the BSD components, as indeed
I have no right to do.  Rather, I am incorporating them into the combined
work, as their license permits and the GPLv2 does not forbid.

The LGPLv3-GPLv2 case is on all fours.  The LGPLv3 components are not
relicensed: the Combined Work is licensed under the terms of my choice
under section 6 (though in fact I have no choice, since the GPLv2
components dictate that the Combined Work be GPLv2).

-- 
Do what you will,                       John Cowan
   this Life's a Fiction                cowan at ccil.org
And is made up of                       http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
   Contradiction.  --William Blake