[Bug 502024] Review Request: xsd - W3C XML schema to C++ data binding compiler

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=502024


Antti Andreimann <antti.andreimann at mail.ee> changed:

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--- Comment #5 from Antti Andreimann <antti.andreimann at mail.ee>  2009-06-16 19:34:10 EDT ---
I received the following reply from Boris Kolpackov

======================================================
Thanks for your effort in packaging XSD for Fedora, it is very much
appreciated. Regarding the licensing issue, unfortunately relicensing
the code under "GPLv2 or later" is not an option at the moment and
making it "GPLv2 with exceptions" opens up a potential maintenance
problem. Let me explain: the files that are under GPLv2 are from the
base libraries that provide functionality that is not related to (nor
is aware of) Xerces-C++. In other words, code from, say libcult, is
used to parse command line arguments and just happens to be in the
same executable (xsdcxx) as code that uses Xerces-C++. Since this
GPLv2 code is not interacting in any way with the Xerces-C++ code
under ASL 2.0, my understanding of the licenses suggests that there
is no issue in having these two pieces of code in the same executable.

The problem with making this code "GPLv2 with exceptions for ASL 2.0"
is that tomorrow somebody else may start using libcult in their
program that uses another, incompatible with GPL, library. They
could then rightfully expect that we will add another exception
to the licensing condition. I think you see how this can quickly
get out of control.

Let me know if the above reasoning (the fact that the GPLv2 and ASL
code are completely independent) is acceptable to the reviewers. If
not then we will have to figure out another way.
======================================================

Well, his logic seems to be that since the libcult does not use xerces
functionality, the licencse incompatibility between the two is not an issue.
I'm not much of an expert on such border line licensing issues, but the logic
here does seem to be similar to making a distribution: you can put different
parts of the system in the same bag and distribute them together (as long as
such distribution is permitted) even if the individual licenses conflict with
each other. The xsd compiler binary is present in debian which has very strict
licensing policies, but I don't know if debian maintainers have investigated
the libcult vs xerces licensing issue.

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