GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 572487
Fix licensing screwups
Last modified: 2009-04-04 08:10:36 UTC
From http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=516190 ------------------------------------------------------------- Some files are licensed under the GPL (see below). Because eg. pygst is GPL licensed, you can't use python-gst0.10 in programs not compatible with the GPL. This should be fixed upstream. Files (in 0.10.14) licensed under the GPL, there may be more: ./gstltihooks.py: GPL (v2 or later) (with incorrect FSF address) ./common/coverage/coverage-report.pl: GPL (v2 or later) (with incorrect FSF address) ./common/coverage/coverage-report-entry.pl: GPL (v2 or later) (with incorrect FSF address) ./common/gstdoc-scangobj: GPL (v2 or later) (with incorrect FSF address) ./pygst.py.in: GPL (v2 or later) (with incorrect FSF address) ------------------------------------------------------------- Also see: http://juliank.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/gstreamer-python-bindings-are-effectively-gpl/
So, the only two files *ACTUALLY* used at runtime are: * gstltihooks.py: This originally came from pygobject. I'll ask jamesh if we can relicense this. * pygst.py.in: Same thing, originally from pygobject, except the pygobject version is now LGPL. I'll therefore ask the 3 other people involved in that file (Jan, Thomas and Andy) if they're ok with relicensing the modifications they did to LGPL. Anything in common/ should be filed in a separate bug. And please... just file a bug next time instead of blogging for such small issues.
I've updated the license block in pygtk/ltihooks.py to LGPL (not sure why I didn't just use LGPL like the rest of pygtk). Looking at the version control history, I am the only one to make non-whitespace changes to the file, so there should be no controversy over the change.
ok, so after thinking more about it, everything in common/ is just used for configuring/building. So... it doesn't taint the license of the actual shipped code (it's no different than using gcc (GPL) to build LGPL binaries).
commit 3ec4919434c26498c3a64747962bb34c8f32effc Author: Edward Hervey <bilboed@bilboed.com> Date: Fri Feb 20 08:34:38 2009 +0100 gstltihooks: Sync with upstream pygobject/ltihooks.py commit. Apply commit from James Henstridge 2009-02-20 : "I've updated the license block in pygtk/ltihooks.py to LGPL (not sure why I didn't just use LGPL like the rest of pygtk)." Partially fixes #572487
Thomas, Andy, Jan : Are you OK with relicensing pygst.py.in to LGPL ?
(In reply to comment #1) > > Anything in common/ should be filed in a separate bug. > > And please... just file a bug next time instead of blogging for such small > issues. > I saw it a bit as a follow-up to a previous post. Two posts earlier, I wrote about Python modules and about licenses, so it was interesting for me to see that there are license issues in the GStreamer Python bindings.
I demand that BOTH my lines of code in pygst remain GPL. J/K, of course - feel free to relicense.
codegen/h2def.py also has an ambiguously licensed. Here's the header: """ # Search through a header file looking for function prototypes. # For each prototype, generate a scheme style definition. # GPL'ed # Toby D. Reeves <toby@max.rl.plh.af.mil> # # Modified by James Henstridge <james@daa.com.au> to output stuff in # Havoc's new defs format. Info on this format can be seen at: # http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gtk-devel-list/2000-January/0085.shtml # Updated to be PEP-8 compatible and refactored to use OOP """ Although it appears to be "GPL'd" by Toby Reeves, there's no actual copyright due to the lack of the word "Copyright" (or the "©" symbol) or year. Would it be possible to get this fixed too?
h2def (and anything in codegen.py) is only used at compile time (i.e. same issue as using gcc (GPL) to build LGPL software). I'll try to bug Thomas harder to reply regarding the relicensing.
pygst.py(.in) has now got its licensed fixed. Considering the remaining GPL files are only used at compile time to generate the resulting code (like GCC) and are not shipped, the resulting build module is effectivelly LGPL. Closing bug, let's stop this nonsense :) commit 0d55256c9f4c82ebe806494d97c51a73f5f162c1 Author: Edward Hervey <bilboed@bilboed.com> Date: Sat Apr 4 10:05:50 2009 +0200 pygst.py.in: Fix license (LGPL).