I'm leaning toward going with gplv3 but...

[Dag-Erling Smørgrav]

Ben Tilly <btilly at gmail.com> writes:
> Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des at des.no> writes:
> > I call bullshit.  You can't say that with one breath, and with the
> > next rejoice over winning a lawsuit on the grounds that interfaces
> > are not copyrightable [to oversimplify].
> I don't know what lawsuit you're bringing up.

SCO v. Novell and SCO v. IBM.  The latter hadn't been "won" as such -
it's just suspended until SCO emerges from bankruptcy - but ISTR several
of SCO's claims were rejected on the basis that interfaces are not
copyrightable.

> That I've summarized Linus' stated opinion over the years can be
> verified [...]

I know. I didn't mean "you" as in "Ben Tilly", more as a general
"whoever made or supports that claim".  What I mean is that I consider
the claim itself bullshit.  I also consider what Linus has been doing
recently "bait and switch", in that older unencumbered KPIs have been
replaced by GPL-only KPIs, so existing proprietary code can't be ported
forward to newer Linux releases.

> > I would simply publish function prototypes and struct definitions
> > for the plugin interface under a permissive license (MIT or
> > Simplified BSD).
> Isn't this exactly the approach that I wound up suggesting?  I called
> it "a separate library", but that is exactly what an independent file
> of function prototypes and struct definitions is.

Yes, except for the "permissive license" bit, unless I misread you,
which I may very well have.

> However, as I noted, if you do that then you should be careful about
> copying random useful-looking bits from the GPLed code to this file,
> because once you start copying things that other people contributed
> under a GPL, you don't have a clear right to say that that file is
> still under a permissive license.

IIUC, the District Court of Utah begs to differ, as long as the "useful
bits" you copied are parts of an interface that the GPL software
exports.

IANAL; the above is based on my recollection of the case(s), which I
followed closely until SCO filed chapter 11 two years ago.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des at des.no