Re: GPL for package under MIT license upstream; repack?

[Gard Spreemann <gspr@nonempty.org>]

Filippo Rusconi <lopippo@debian.org> writes:

> Greetings,
>
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 10:41:07AM +0200, Gard Spreemann wrote:
>>Hello,
>>
>>A package I maintain (src:gudhi) was mostly under GPL-3+ up to and
>>including the current version in the archives. Since then, upstream has
>>switched to an MIT license, but with the caveat that many parts of the
>>code has GPL dependencies and that "for practical purposes this code is
>>GPL-3 for the user" [1].
>
>From the page you provide a link to, the following shows little understanding of
> licensing issues:
>
> 8< ~~~~
>
> GPLv3 is a Copyleft license that gives the user the right to use, copy and
> modify the code freely for non-commercial purposes.
>
> ~~~~ >8

Oh, yeah, I missed that on the license page. I'll raise it as an issue
with upstream.

> Maybe you would like to ensure with them that they understand what they are
> doing with this mixing of modules/licenses.

I did have a short discussion with them regarding the topic in general
[2].

[2] https://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/gudhi-users/2019-September/000320.html

Thanks for your feedback.


 Best,
 Gard