[PD] Percolate

[Chris McCormick]

On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 03:42:33PM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> Hallo,
> Ivica Ico Bukvic hat gesagt: // Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
> 
> > > That's not the problem. The problem is, that the current Percolate
> > > license is not a free software license. Non-free licenses are
> > > incompatible with the GPL, which flext uses. By distributing a version
> > > of Percolate externals using their current license built with
> > > GPL-flext you would be violating the GPL! So you are not allowed to
> > > distribute your flext-Percolate ATM.
> > 
> > Please pardon my ignorance, but will this be the case even if I distribute
> > the ported code as source-only (assuming that I get a permission to do so
> > from the original authors)? 
> 
> I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, source or binary doesn't
> matter: As long as you distribute a flext-external, source or binary,
> you have to distribute it as GPL. This is impossible without violating
> either the Percolate license or the GPL, because both are
> incompatible: the Percolate license isn't a free license. 

It would be good to find out what the legal status of code
that is illegally licensed. We've had this issue before with the
not-for-military-use clause that Yves added to his software, rendering
it technically illegal. A lawyer could tell us if it's a) in legal limbo
land where nobody is legally allowed to use it b) defaults to public
domain c) something else weird.

Chris.

-------------------
chris at mccormick.cx
http://mccormick.cx