[gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-project] eudev project announcement

[Duncan]

Rich Freeman posted on Sat, 15 Dec 2012 07:48:29 -0500 as excerpted:

> On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:52 PM, Richard Yao <ryao@g.o> wrote:
>>         The systemd developers were in the middle of a transition to
>>         the LGPL
>> from the GPL when we forked. We inherited the code in the middle of
>> that transition and we see no reason to pursue a different course.
>> Therefore, all future changes that we make to eudev will be available
>> under the LGPL.
>
> Not sure what the driver is to use LGPL, but in general the Gentoo
> social contract requires that all contributions be made under GPLv2+ or
> the CC BY-SAv2+.  I'm sure exceptions can be made if they make sense and
> are aligned with Gentoo's mission (likely something that would fall on
> the Foundation to approve).  If eudev were a non-Gentoo project then
> Gentoo could depend on it as long as it used any OSI-approved license.
>
> Why not just use GPLv2+?  The LGPL is compatible, so this would not
> prevent us from merging udev changes.
>
> Not suggesting that we shouldn't use the LGPL if there is a good reason
> to do so that is aligned with Gentoo's mission.  I would just like to
> understand the reason for it.

The biggest reason surely must be two-way license compatibility with 
udev, allowing patch-flow both ways.  As I said in an earlier post, at 
least from my perspective, the ideal outcome would be that the very 
presence of eudev creates conditions where the reasons why it was forked 
no longer exist, and the two projects can ultimately remerge.  Surely, as 
a fork the PR problems are bad enough, and we don't want to be the ones 
deliberately throwing legal/license road blocks into the way of two-way 
patch-flow, making the situation worse.  If the conditions that triggered 
eudev forking don't improve, let it be due to decisions from the OTHER 
side, not due to decisions here.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman