French GPL-compatible License

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2004-07-12 at 23:24 +0200, Thomas Linden wrote:
> You can read everywhere about this 'gpl-compatibility' thing. But what
> is compatibility in fact? IMHO this has to mean one license is
> compatible to another and back. Which is not the case with the GPL.

"Compatible" means "works together". The BSD licence is as much GPL-
compatible as the GPL is BSD-compatible.

> But it is *not* possible to create a new project, use some GPLed code
> and release the whole thing under the BSD license, because of the unique
> infecting behavior of the GPL.

You can never relicence other people's code. The GPL doesn't allow you
to do that either - so, I don't think you're right to call the GPL
"infecting". If you combine two pieces of software that are licenced
differently, you must fulfil the obligations of *both* simultaneously:
you must respect the BSD licence as much as the GPL.

Cheers,

Alex.