samba license change

[Rahul Sundaram]

Andrew Bartlett wrote:

> 
> The problem is, there is no long-term will to maintain such a -compat
> package.  How long would such a package last - forever if other packages
> don't move?  Who would maintain it?

I assume whoever is dependent on Samba but can't make the move to a 
compatible license would be interesting in maintaining it. I don't think 
it is feasible for us to have a new release of Fedora where something as 
major as GNOME or KDE does not have any Samba support. Do you?

> The bit that bothers me is that not only was Samba for the longest time
> mentioned in most GPLv3 news articles, we asked if anybody had a reason
> not to change our licence, and nobody gave a compelling reason.

Things are not working a vacuum. You know the major players in Free 
dependent on Samba which includes GNOME and KDE. The license 
incompatibility that would occur as a result of this move was very plain 
  to everyone involved. Such a transition can take several months if we 
have to introduce it into the distribution. I don't see any way out of a 
  maintaining a GPLv2 version of Samba for a while unless everyone 
involved moves to GPLv3 or compatible licenses for their own software 
quickly if they are dependent on Samba.

Rahul