French GPL-compatible License

[Jeroen Dekkers]

At Tue, 13 Jul 2004 09:09:45 +0200,
Reinhard Mueller wrote:
> Am Die, den 13.07.2004 schrieb Niall Douglas um 1:46:
> > I'll just short circuit the answer to this because I thought the same 
> > as you until quite recently. The GPL's wording only mandates that 
> > derived code must supply its source, not that the derived code must 
> > also be GPLed.
> 
> GPL, 2.b
> You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or
> in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to
> be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms
> of this License.
> 
> The derived code *must* be GPL.
> 
> > Technically speaking, I could take a GPLed C file, alter two lines 
> > and so long as I have clearly demarcated those two lines as being 
> > copyright to me and therefore under my magic special license, that's 
> > fine. Of course, my magic special license must supply source with any 
> > binary release plus meet all the other GPL requirements.
> 
> No. There is no separate license for your two lines of code.

Software doesn't have to be under one license only, it can have
multiple licences. And that's what happens here.

Of course, the whole program will be under the GPL. That's what the
GPL requires. But that doesn't prevent someone from saying that all
the lines of codes they added to the program can be used under the BSD
license. So, in fact, those lines of code are than licensed under both
the GPL and the BSD license.
 
> > Neither do I. Indeed, the GPL is a very poor license to choose for 
> > certain kinds of project though to even suggest that it isn't perfect 
> > is flamebait to certain kinds of mentality. I only use the GPL for 
> > augmentations to existing GPLed works - I use LGPL or better for all 
> > new code.
> 
> The GPL is a perfect license for most of the project. For a very small
> number of project, the LGPL is is better.

And for even smaller number of projects, BSD-style is better (ogg
vorbis for example). :-)

Jeroen Dekkers