Re: Packages, release notes, etc

[tomas]

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On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 01:00:04PM +0200, Tassilo Horn wrote:
> <tomas@tuxteam.de> writes:
> 
> >> > With respect to license, I think it is not even possible for an
> >> > emacs package to have a license different than GPL version 3 or
> >> > later.  Each package is a combined work of emacs + X so the emacs
> >> > license extends to the package.  That's probably the reason why
> >> > there's no special License field in the standard headers.
> >> Hm, so it isn't possible to distribute a package that is in the
> >> public domain or maybe one that is Artistic ver. 2.0 licensed via
> >> ELPA or one of the other repositories? I doubt that.
> >
> > This looks strange to me too. Tassilo: are you sure you didn't mean
> > "...to have a license incompatible than GPLV3 [or later]"?
> 
> No, I've meant what I said.  You can write a GPL program and thereby use
> other libraries with GPL-compatible licenses.  But as soon as you use a
> GPL library in your program, that program must also be GPL.  That's why
> the GPL is called a copyleft license.

The question is of academic value anyway, since an Emacs extension
only makes sense together with Emacs or XEmacs, and both are GPL.

It's clear that the extension must be *at least* GPL compatible to
be of any value for the user. And then, distributing it in the context
of Emacs makes it *effectively* GPL. Perhaps it must be GPL, as you
say.

Not making it GPL (if at all legally possible) has only the value of
confusing the user, which I think we agree is not a positive value :-)

regards
- -- tomás
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