Re: [libredwg] Libredwg Rebirth

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

In the GNU Project we are not supporters of "open source".  We develop
free software so as to liberate users from nonfree (user-subjugating)
software.  Thus, we give the long-term goal of defeating nonfree
software priority over short-term success.

For some issues, that difference in goals and values has no effect.
For other issues, it changes everything.

  > According to our understanding it s allowed for GPLv2 licensed
  > application s to use MIT and/or BSD code as long as it s
  > dynamically loaded.

There are some vaguenesses in that statement, as a result of which
it is neither true nor false.

* There are two different BSD licenses.  The original BSD license is
incompatible with all GPL versions.  The modified BSD license is
compatible with all GPL versions.  See
http://gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html.

* There are two different licenses that some people call "MIT", but
that term is a misnomer (http://gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html).
Fortunately, both of them are compatible with all GPL versions.

* It is a mistake to assume that dynamic linking makes the issue go
away.  Dynamic linking can violate the GPL too.

Therefore:

Any GPL-covered program can be linked, statically or dynamically, with
code under the X11 license, the Expat license or the revised BSD
license, because these are GPL-compatible licenses.

However, linking (or otherwise combining) GPL-covered code with code
under the original BSD license can violate the GPL, because that
license is GPL-incompatible.

The end user can link GPL-covered code with anything, because the GPL
doesn't impose any conditions on what the end user does privately.

However, distributing packages designed to dynamically combine
GPL-covered code with code under a GPL-incompatible license may
violate the GPL.

These statements apply to all GPL versions.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.