[License-discuss] OSL and GPLv3

Wed Jun 19 17:18:20 UTC 2019

"Alexander, in your opinion, if the libraries are correctly used, without
modifications, this ok to ship them whatever license they use? "

Yes.

Note that the FSF is on record supporting this view: Back in 2006 when Dan
Wallace alleged in court
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_v._International_Business_Machines_Corp.#FSF_lawsuit
that the GPL is meant to infect collective works as a whole (combined works
consisting of several independent works) resulting in quasi-automatic
aggregation of independent copyrights under the GPL in a pool of
GPL-copylefted works, professional lawyers hired by the FSF responded that
such allegation is baseless. IIRC docket number 37. Here's the quote:

"In fact, the GPL itself rejects any automatic aggregation of software
copyrights under the GPL simply because one program licensed under the GPL
is distributed together with another program that is not licensed under the
GPL: "In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the
Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume
of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the
scope of this License."

Plaintiff's mischaracterization of the GPL in his Response has no bearing
on the resolution of the pending Motion to Dismiss because the Court can
examine the GPL itself. "[T]o the extent that the terms of an attached
contract conflict with the allegations of the complaint, the contract
controls." Centers v. Centennial Mortg., Inc., 398 F.3d 930, 933 (7th Cir.
2005)."

Attribution:

"Philip A. Whistler (#1205-49)
Curtis W. McCauley (#16456-49)
Attorneys for Defendant, Free Software Foundation, Inc.

ICE MILLER
One American Square Box 82001
Indianapolis, IN 46282-0002
317.236.2100"

Am Mi., 19. Juni 2019 um 15:28 Uhr schrieb Antoine Thomas <
antoine.thomas at prestashop.com>:

> Alexander, in your opinion, if the libraries are correctly used, without
> modifications, this ok to ship them whatever license they use?
>
>
> [image: PrestaShop]
> <https://www.prestashop.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=emails-signatures>
>
> Antoine Thomas aka ttoine
>
> Developer Advocate
>
> t: +33 (0)6 63 13 79 06
>
> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 19 Jun 2019 at 14:53, Alexander Terekhov <herr.alter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> "A project" == https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology - nothing more or
>> less than that.
>>
>> The issue of "compatibility" is overstated by the proponents of "strong
>> copyleft".
>>
>> Just 0.2€
>>
>> Am Mi., 19. Juni 2019 um 11:29 Uhr schrieb Antoine Thomas <
>> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com>:
>>
>>> Patrice,
>>>
>>> One last question. You said:
>>> > the EUPL covered code is publicly available and reusable in other
>>> projects covered by OSL, GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0, LGPL etc.
>>>
>>> But what about the opposite, using OSL, GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0, LGPL etc. in a
>>> EUPL project? and then ship it?
>>>
>>> Antoine
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> [image: PrestaShop]
>>> <https://www.prestashop.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=emails-signatures>
>>>
>>> Antoine Thomas aka ttoine
>>>
>>> Developer Advocate
>>>
>>> t: +33 (0)6 63 13 79 06
>>>
>>> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 at 23:17, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz <
>>> pe.schmitz at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear Antoine,
>>>> Providing a definitive legal answer (and certainty) in your specific
>>>> case is difficult.
>>>> At Joinup.eu we constantly promote interoperability and the respect of
>>>> primary licences.
>>>> Therefore, in our view, a global project may include components under
>>>> several licences and each component should keep its licence (by the way, we
>>>> spell it "licence" and not "license" as in US).
>>>> You wrote the you "use" libraries.
>>>> As I said, "using" a library according to its normal usage instruction
>>>> should never impact the licensing of a resulting work.
>>>> To take a very trivial example, If someone writes a novel and
>>>> distributes it electronically to third parties as a ."doc file",  this file
>>>> (in MS proprietary format) may contain some Microsoft proprietary code or
>>>> data formats, but this is the result of the normal use of MS/word and
>>>> Microsoft will not request any copyright on this novel.
>>>> In case of linking, the copy or reuse or decompilation of data
>>>> formats/API needed for implementing interoperability is considered as a
>>>> copyright exception by the European law and I am not aware of any case law
>>>> contradicting that point, even outside Europe. Does anyone knows?
>>>> So the real issue that you could meet is in case of real merging of
>>>> software codes from components covered by incompatible licences (in all
>>>> other cases each component could be licensed under its primary licence,
>>>> i.e. OSL or or LGPL or GPL). This is to avoid, generally speaking.
>>>> The French reference you mention is outdated regarding the EUPL-1.2
>>>> which is now compatible with all the copyleft licences listed in this "Veni
>>>> Vidi Libri" table..
>>>> For this reason, the EUPL-1.2 was preferred in case of project
>>>> integrating multiple components, as it was reported by Dr Martin Serrano
>>>> (Fiesta-IoT project) in a recent Joinup published interview:
>>>>
>>>> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/inline-files/SC50_D06.01.02_EUPL_Interview_summary_vFINAL.pdf
>>>>
>>>> Of course, you will never obtain a 100% guarantee of legal security in
>>>> all possible cases and jurisdictions around the world, but the fact is that
>>>> the EUPL covered code is publicly available and reusable in other projects
>>>> covered by OSL, GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0, LGPL etc. So no one should have any real
>>>> interest in litigation.
>>>> Best,
>>>> Patrice
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Le mar. 18 juin 2019 à 17:02, Antoine Thomas <
>>>> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com> a écrit :
>>>>
>>>>> Patrice, thanks a lot for your answer.
>>>>>
>>>>> About your introduction question: the original code of PrestaShop
>>>>> project is currently in OSL, with some modules in AFL. We also rely on
>>>>> librairies in MIT and BSD, shipped with the installer (like the Symfony
>>>>> framework). But, we would like to use a few librairies in LGPL and GPLv3 to
>>>>> accelerate our developments and features. And we feel limited by the use of
>>>>> the OSL license: it is difficult to find information about compatibility
>>>>> and other feedback, as only a few projects are using it.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, if I understand well, changing the license of the project to
>>>>> EUPL-1.2 could allow a project to include and ship both OSL (like our
>>>>> current code) and GPLv3 (some new libraries) code? Interesting. Would this
>>>>> be possible only in the European legal framework, or also outside Europe?
>>>>>
>>>>> I had a quick look at an other reference (in French, but easy to
>>>>> understand), a compatibility table between licenses:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://vvlibri.org/fr/guide-de-lauteur-libre-gerer-des-licences-differentes-compatibilites-de-licences/tableau-de
>>>>> Maybe this table needs to be updated about EUPL? What do you think? Do
>>>>> you have an equivalent on joinup.eu?
>>>>>
>>>>> Or maybe, if we follow this table, the best way is to change the
>>>>> license of the OSL code, and move it to GPLv3. That would be a huge IP
>>>>> work, to check with all authors of the project's code if they agree. But
>>>>> that would be an interesting investment in IP for our community of users
>>>>> and developers. And, also, in a time when many business backed open source
>>>>> project move to proprietary, this would be a strong message of PrestaShop's
>>>>> commitment to open source.
>>>>>
>>>>> Patrice, what do you think? is it possible to have your feedback on
>>>>> this questions and hypothesis? Maybe some other reader of this mailing list
>>>>> could have feedback to share?
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Antoine
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> [image: PrestaShop]
>>>>> <https://www.prestashop.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=emails-signatures>
>>>>>
>>>>> Antoine Thomas aka ttoine
>>>>>
>>>>> Developer Advocate
>>>>>
>>>>> t: +33 (0)6 63 13 79 06
>>>>>
>>>>> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 at 13:53, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz via
>>>>> License-discuss <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Antoine,
>>>>>> It seems related to the question: how far is your project (that would
>>>>>> be globally licensed under OSL) a derivative of the GPL-3.0 code, or not?
>>>>>> It is also related to your legal framework, in so far the various
>>>>>> codes are more or less closely linked.
>>>>>> The European legal framework considers that the normal and fair use
>>>>>> of a tool (like a library, according to its usage instructions, without
>>>>>> modifying the library source code) does not make resulting works
>>>>>> "derivatives" of the used tool.
>>>>>> In addition, it states (in my opinion) that linking different
>>>>>> components, for the sole and fair purpose of making these components
>>>>>> interoperable, is a copyright exception and cannot be restricted by the
>>>>>> copyright owner. This temperate a lot the theory of "strong copyleft" on
>>>>>> this point. (Law lovers will reed Recital 15 of *Directive
>>>>>> 2009/24/EC
>>>>>> <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024&from=EN>*).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> An alternative solution is the use of the EUPL-1.2 that is expressly
>>>>>> covered by the European legal framework and is expressly compatible with
>>>>>> both the OSL and the GPL-3.0
>>>>>> More on joinup.eu and in particular the recent JLA (joinup licensing
>>>>>> assistant)
>>>>>> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/joinup-licensing-assistant-jla
>>>>>>  .
>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>> Patrice
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Le lun. 17 juin 2019 à 11:57, Antoine Thomas <
>>>>>> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com> a écrit :
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> With our IP team, we have a few questions about compatibility
>>>>>>> between OSLv3 and GPLv3. We consider as acknowledged that it's not possible
>>>>>>> to distribute GPLv2 code in an OSLv3 project. However, what about the more
>>>>>>> recent GPLv3, considered to be more open?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Of course, it's about using librairies and other dependencies in an
>>>>>>> open source project, and then ship it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, there are two questions:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1/ Is it possible to ship GPLv3 code within an OSLv3 project
>>>>>>> installer?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2/ Is it possible to ship OSLv3 code within a GPLv3 project
>>>>>>> installer?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What do you think? what is your experience? Is there some examples?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Antoine
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [image: PrestaShop]
>>>>>>> <https://www.prestashop.com/?utm_source=signature&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=emails-signatures>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Antoine Thomas aka ttoine
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Developer Advocate
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> t: +33 (0)6 63 13 79 06
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> antoine.thomas at prestashop.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> License-discuss mailing list
>>>>>>> License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz
>>>>>> pe.schmitz at googlemail.com
>>>>>> tel. + 32 478 50 40 65
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> License-discuss mailing list
>>>>>> License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz
>>>> pe.schmitz at googlemail.com
>>>> tel. + 32 478 50 40 65
>>>>
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