Re: [O] How to make a non-GPL Org-mode exporter?

[Nick Dokos]

Marcin Borkowski <address@hidden> writes:

> On 2015-07-27, at 14:39, Daniele Nicolodi <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Hello Marcin,
>>
>> On 27/07/15 14:10, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>>> Assume that (for some reason) I want to write an Org-mode exporter which
>>> won't be GPL'd.  (Use-case: having written a few custom exporters, I'm
>>> writing a tutorial on them, and I consider publishing a *tutorial* with
>>> GPL'd code a Bad Thing™.  (The idea of a programming tutorial is that
>>> other people can or even should reuse the code in the tutorial, right?
>>> And I see no reason to impose GPL on them.))
>>
>> As Oleh Krehel pointed out in a reply to another mail of yours, if your
>> code links to org-mode code (or other GPL code) you cannot release it
>> under a different license. I'm not sure about how linking is intended in
>> Elisp sense of ('require)ing a library, but I believe it is analog to
>> executable linking in machine code programs.
>
> I understand, and I thank you for your clarification.  (Though I still
> consider it plain ridiculous.  And the fact that Oleh's own blog is
> CC-BY-NC-SA licensed, and contains many fragments of Elisp code, both
> small snippets and whole functions, thus rendering it illegal, is
> sweet;-).)
>

Illegal? You are building strawmen.

>> Therefore, the only extensions to org-mode that can exist (and be
>> distributed, if you write code and keep it for yourself you are not
>> affected by the licensing terms) must be GPL.
>>
>> Thus, it makes little sense to continue the discussion: even if you
>> would release the code in your tutorial under a different license, it
>> would be or no use for who will read it.
>
> I see.  Funnily, I found a few Emacs blogs (also by renowned Emacs
> hackers, like Oleh mentioned above) which clearly violate the rule that
> any Elisp code should be GPL'd.  So my intuition that nobody cares (at
> least until explicitly asked) seems to be confirmed;-).
>

There is no such rule anywhere so this is another strawman. You can
write an emacs module and use whatever license you want, put it up on
the web (or not) and do anything you want with it. Just don't expect
it to become part of emacs: it will have a separate life (and most
probably a short one when you get bored with it). Ditto for your
tutorial.

Nick