Re: [Savannah-hackers] Re: flex project on savannah?

[Jeff Bailey]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 04:01:02PM -0500, W. L. Estes wrote:

> > That should eliminate the GPL incompatibility to my non-lawyer
> > eyes.

> Does the current flex license have this problem? See
> ftp://ftp.uncg.edu/people/wlestes/ for the archive. 2.5.26 is the
> current version.

It doesn't seem so.

> > Perhaps flex might be best served by simply asking to be a GNU project? 
> > Copyright assignment isn't required these days (although I still like to
> > do it).  You could either go ahead and make it GPL from here, or perhaps
> > dual-license it like Perl, Mozilla and Ghostscript have done.  Then it
> > would remove any hassle about the mailing lists and web pages which
> > already exist for your project.

> Well, I don't think that I can simply remove the BSD-style
> license. 

I was mostly just thinking of the advertising clause.  The Hurd and
glibc both contain a fair chunk of code that has other licenses in
addition to the GPL.  The FSF's legal group would be the best ones able
to help you navigate that river.

> I don't know about the legalities of making flex dual-licensed, my
> arm-chair lawyering doesn't extend that far.

As I understand it (and keep in mind that my understanding might be
wrong!) is that the BSD license allows you to do anything you want to
the original code, including releasing it under a different license so
long as the original conditions are met (No endorsement, keep the
disclaimer).

Any new code written by you can be released under whatever license you
feel like.  You can even release it under multiple licenses.  The only
thing you cannot do is change the license retroactively (so, you cannot
give someone a copy for free and then later decide that their copy is in
fact not free)

Dual licenseing works based on those.  Because you could (as I see it)
pick up the current flex sources and release them as GPL, you release
any new code as both GPL and BSD license.

> As I read the stuff about being a GNU project, that might be ok, but I
> would like someone to provide me the argument. So far, I have:

> 1: It would make the trouble of figuring out where flex can be hosted
> using GNU resources easier.

> What other reasons are there?

Well, you mean aside from being incredibly attractive to whatever gender
you would like to be attracted to you? =)

For flex, probably not alot of advantages.  You're already hosted on the
GNU Servers, and have been for probably a decade.  You're already used
by major GNU packages (GCC, etc.).  There are not many competing
packages, since flex already does a very nice job - Many people look for
GNU apps first.

I suspect most folks out there already assume that flex is a GNU
project.  I used to for a long time.

So probably the biggest advantage to you is your resume - You can then
write that you are a GNU maintainer.  A compsci manager who doesn't know
anything about lexical analysis will still understand that. =)

Tks,
Jeff Bailey