[Mageia-dev] Fw: GPL-compatibility Question: Distributing Binaries of GPLed Programs Which Link Against Non-Free Code

Fri Nov 16 21:59:16 CET 2012

Hi Aaron,
+
+I am forwarding your reply to the Mageia development mailing list.
+
+Regards,
+
+	Shlomi Fish
+
+Begin forwarded message:
+
+Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:55:12 -0500
+From: Aaron Williamson <aaronw at softwarefreedom.org>
+To: shlomif at shlomifish.org
+Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: GPL-compatibility Question: Distributing Binaries of
+GPLed Programs Which Link Against Non-Free Code
+
+
+Hi Shlomi,
+
+Below I've outlined the significant legal issues here. This is not legal advice:
+SFLC does not represent Mageia and I have not thoroughly reviewed the code at
+issue here to comprehensively understand its copyright and licensing structure.
+Rather, I have just identified the key issues based on the facts provided in
+your email and a quick visit to Cinelerra's website. Additionally, SFLC is a US
+legal services organization, and is not licensed to practice law in France, nor
+are we familiar with French copyright law. If you'd like, I'd be happy to refer
+you to a lawyer in Paris who is familiar with free software licensing issues.
+
+Our understanding of the linking issue comports with the Free Software
+Foundation's position: linking a GPL'd program with a program under another
+license results in a combined work based on both programs. The GPL requires that
+the resulting work be licensed under the GPL, and that no additional
+restrictions (besides those in the GPL) be placed on the work. Because the faac
+code is encumbered by the "compliant implementations" restriction, the
+combination would violate the GPL.
+
+That said, the linking question usually arises where a downstream user of a
+GPL-licensed work wants to link it with proprietary modules. If I understand
+your intention correctly, at least with regard to Cinelerra, you would not be
+introducing the incompatibility, i.e. Cinelerra already links to faac -- you
+would just be packaging and distributing both programs for Mageia. Is that
+accurate?
+
+If that's right, and Cinelerra is responsible for the violation of the license
+on its own software, it is difficult to imagine that they'd press the violation,
+or that a court would permit them to. Rather, it would seem that they intend the
+two programs to be used together and, even if they have not granted an explicit
+GPL exception allowing the combination, may have at least granted an implied
+license by distributing the combined work themselves.
+
+This analysis, however, assumes that the Cinelerra developers own all the
+copyrights in the GPL-licensed code within Cinelerra, and thus have the right to
+grant such an exception (implied or otherwise). If they have incorporated GPL'd
+code produced by third parties, who never licensed such a combination, into
+Cinelerra, then their use of faac can't provide their downstream users with any
+sort of comfort regarding the violation. You may wish to contact the Cinelerra
+developers and ask them to clarify who owns which portions of their codebase,
+and whether they intend for others to link their GPL'd code with faac.
+
+Best,
+
+-- 
+Aaron Williamson
+Senior Staff Counsel
+Software Freedom Law Center
+1995 Broadway, 17th Fl.
+New York, NY 10023
+(212) 461-1911 direct
+(212) 580-0898 fax
+www.softwarefreedom.org
+
+
+On 11/14/2012 06:00 PM, help at softwarefreedom.org wrote:
+> 
+> 
+> -------- Original Message --------
+> Subject: Re: GPL-compatibility Question: Distributing Binaries of GPLed
+> Programs Which Link Against Non-Free Code
+> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:07:31 +0200
+> From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org>
+> To: help at softwarefreedom.org
+> 
+> On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:17:00 -0500
+> help at softwarefreedom.org wrote:
+> 
+>> On 11/09/2012 12:23 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote:
+>> > Dear Sir or Madam,
+>> > 
+>> > I am writing you this letter on behalf of Mageia
+>> > ( https://www.mageia.org/en/ ), which is a community-developed, operating
+>> > system, based on the GNU/Linux system and with a free-and-open-source
+>> > (FOSS) core. We would like to ask whether (and how) we can distribute
+>> > pre-built packages of a GPLed program (in our case, the video editor
+>> > cinelerra) after it was linked to a library with some proprietary and
+>> > non-GPLed code (in our case, faac).
+>> > 
+>> > The longer story is that there has been some demand for including faac
+>> > ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/faac/ - the Freeware Advance Audio
+>> > Coder), which is both non-free in part and patent encumbered, in our
+>> > distribution, and to prepare versions of the appropriate packages for
+>> > which it is an optional dependency. These packages, such as cinelerra (
+>> > http://cinelerra.org/ - a video editor), are licenced under
+>> > the GPL, which restricts which code its distributed binaries may be legally
+>> > linked to.
+>> > 
+>> > So our question is: assuming we package faac as a package, can we still
+>> > provide pre-made and binary packages of GPLed programs that use it?
+>> > Furthermore, would this require receiving an explicit permission from the
+>> > copyright owner of the program under the GPL?
+>> > 
+>> > We would appreciate any advice that you can give to us on the matter.
+>> > 
+>> > Sincerely yours,
+>> > 
+>> > — Shlomi Fish, on behalf of the Mageia development team.
+>> > 
+>> > 
+>> 
+>> 
+>> 
+>> The Software Freedom Law Center has received an email from you sent to
+>> help at softwarefreedom.org.  We look forward to helping you in any way we
+>> can, but before we can do that we need to make sure that you understand
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+> 
+> Understood
+> 
+
+
+-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
+Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
+Escape from GNU Autohell - http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/anti/autohell/
+
+mplayer 0.9.999.2010.03.11-rc5-adc83b19e793491b1c6ea0fd8b46cd9f32e592fc is
+now available for download.
+    — Shlomi Fish and d3x.
+
+Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
+