[License-discuss] OSL and GPLv3

Thu Jun 20 14:32:15 UTC 2019

Alexander,

Thanks a lot for the details.

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 Wed, 19 Jun 2019 at 19:19, Alexander Terekhov <herr.alter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "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
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>> License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> 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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