GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 701094
Please clarify the license
Last modified: 2013-06-16 09:05:57 UTC
Hi, From debian bug report http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=569642: Your license is not clear: - It says that the license does not apply to various things, which would mean one has less freedom to use those things, though I suspect that is not intended; - It refers to the “GNU General Public License” without specifying which version (your website link however to GPL2) from doxygen.cpp: * Copyright (C) 1997-2010 by Dimitri van Heesch. * * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its * documentation under the terms of the GNU General Public License is hereby * granted. No representations are made about the suitability of this software * for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. * See the GNU General Public License for more details. * * Documents produced by Doxygen are derivative works derived from the * input used in their production; they are not affected by this license. Would it be possible to clarify these things ? Ideally, I would like this to say Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation is hereby granted under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. See LICENSE for more details. Documents produced by Doxygen are copyright the authors of the input used in their production. You can do whatever you want with portions that come from Doxygen.
- It says that the license does not apply to various things, which would mean one has less freedom to use those things, though I suspect that is not intended; Your proposal is exactly the same as the license states only in less formal wording. If you, as a user, have the freedom to use any license you want for you input and doxygen's output, that gives you more freedom than if you have to comply with the GPL, so it provides more freedom not less. - It refers to the “GNU General Public License” without specifying which version (your website link however to GPL2) The LICENSE file that comes with doxygen clearly specifies it is version 2 of the GPL license. I don't see the need to repeat this in every source file.