[Nicolas Cannasse] Re: Question about LICENSE file and overal license for neko project

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

This is a message for those wishing to package the neko project and
components such as nekoc and nekoml.

As I'm not a developer, this case is somewhat confusing to me, specially
in regards to whether neko (virtual machine?) should have its license
changed or not.

I still didn't reply to them, but I'll do so right now. If you do have other
questions, please ask.

In the bottom of this message is my original message to Haxe Foundation.

> --- Begin Message ---
>
>
>
> Subject: 
>
> Re: Question about LICENSE file and overal license for neko project
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Thu, 16 Mar 2017 22:26:02 +0100
>
>
>
>
> User-agent: 
>
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.7.1
>
>
>
>
> > Taking all of these things in consideration, I must ask:
> >
> > 1. Which license is neko under?
> > 2. Considering that nekoml and nekoc are under GPL 2, does neko depend
> >    on these two to exist (be made/done) ?
>
> Neko is divided in several parts:
>
> - the nekoml and nekoc compilers, which can compile a .neko file into a 
> .n are GPL 2
>
> - the neko virtual machine "neko" binary, uses to run .n files, does not 
> use nekoml/nekoc and is licensed as MIT starting from 2013 (was LGPL before)
>
> - neko dynamic libraries (.ndll files) are MIT but might require an 
> additional license as specified in the README.
>
> Hope that helps,
> NC
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
>
>
>
> Subject: 
>
> Question about LICENSE file and overal license for neko project
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Sun, 05 Mar 2017 15:01:37 -0300
>
>
>
>
> User-agent: 
>
> Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.1 (gnu/linux)
>
>
>
>
> Hi all!
>
> I have a question regarding neko project, and the main license for it.
>
> To understand my question, first I must describe my findings so far:
>
> The main section of the file at
> https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/neko/blob/master/LICENSE (from here
> on, the LICENSE file) and also the file at
> https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/neko/blob/master/src/neko/Main.nml says that 
> neko is under Expat license.
>
> However, the neko project seems to depend on nekoc and nekoml, which per
> the LICENSE file, are under GNU GPL 2 (assumed to be only, because there
> is no short license notice that says "or later"). I have explored the
> repository a little bit, and did find some paths that look like to be
> nekoc and nekoml, but they seem to be included in the major project
> (neko), I found so far:
>
> - https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/neko/blob/master/boot/nekoc.n
> - https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/neko/blob/master/boot/nekoml.n
> - https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/neko/tree/master/src/nekoml
>
> With this in mind I also found out that there are some closed and open
> issues in regards to license of neko project. These are the ones that I
> found interesting so far:
>
> - https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/haxe/issues/2904
>   - Seems to point that neko is under GPL 2+ ("+" stands for "or
>     later"). Of course, I discarded the "debian/"-specific paths.
> - https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/haxe/issues/4362
>   - People suggesting change to a permissive license.
>
> Taking all of these things in consideration, I must ask:
>
> 1. Which license is neko under?
> 2. Considering that nekoml and nekoc are under GPL 2, does neko depend
>    on these two to exist (be made/done) ?
>
> If the answer for question 2 is affirmative, then I suggest to change
> the license of neko in the LICENSE file to match the one for nekoc and
> nekoml.
>
> As a minimum suggestion: After careful evaluation, of course: consider
> using GNU GPL 2+ ("or later") for neko, nekoc, and nekoml. This can be
> secured by adding the short license notice suggested in the license text
> to the README file. There are more suggestions that I would like to
> make, but these are even more optional, like: using AGPL 3+ instead
> (which offers even greater respect for average end-users), but these
> changes must be made after evaluating if they are indeed possible.
>
> Sorry for not using GitHub, but it forces society to download nonfree
> software through JavaScript, among other issues which can be read by
> visiting:
> https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html#GitHub .
>
>
> Respectfully, Adonay.
>
> --- End Message ---

-- 
- [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno]]
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
  gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre, por isso não uso. Iguais a ele prefiro
  Ring, ou Tox. Quer outras formas de contato? Adicione o vCard que
  está no endereço acima aos teus contatos.
- Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
  aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
  /software/ livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
- "People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the
  world."
                                                 --- Richard Stallman