Re: Licensing Issues

[Riccardo]

Hmm,

I'm not a legal expert at all and Licenses have caused me headache more 
than one time...
On Friday, February 25, 2005, at 10:44 PM, britt creamer wrote:

> base/Source/NSNotificationQueue.m         has Copyright 1995, 1996 
> Ovidiu Predescu and Mircea Oancea
> gui/Images/GNUstep_Images_Copyright    has Copyright 1997 Andrew 
> Lindesay
> gui/Source/NSBezierPath.m                     has Copyright 1998 Raph 
> Levien
> gui/Source/tiff.m                                      has 2 Copyrights 
> of concern: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Sam Leffler
>                                                                          
>                                 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Silicon 
> Graphics, Inc.

<cut>
> Question for First Issue:
> Is it possible to have all non FSF Copyright names removed from all 
> GNUstep code for this concern?

I think not. I refer to the Tiff library for example. It was developed 
by SGI. So any program that uses that code refers to that copyright. And 
that are almost all programs I know of, including commercial ones.

The second point is that this thinking will prevent you to use a lot of 
GPL/LGPL code (or BSD too). You have to sign and transfer the copyright 
of your application to FSF after applying for it.
I for example release PRICE under GPL, but my name appears in the 
copyright, since I did not transfer (C) to fsf.

SO I suppose anyone that takes some imaging code out of price and puts 
it in GNUstep, provided the license is compatible, should retain my 
Copyright. Or am I wrong here?
Maybe some of the people who are core GNUstep developers might  cast 
light on this matter.
--R