[gnu.org #693634] GMP as dual-license GPLv2+/LGPLv3+?

[Andreas Metzler]

On 2011-05-18 Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org> wrote:
> "Karl Berry via RT" <licensing at fsf.org> writes:
[...]
>>  Simon> [the idea] is to switch gmp from lgplv3+ to gplv2+|lgplv3+,
>>  Simon> so that gplv2-only applications can continue to use GnuTLS
>>  Simon> with GMP.

>> As I was one of the people who drafted that idea with rms, I feel
>> confident in saying that licensing change for gmp is fine --
>> solo lgplv3+ to the dual gplv2+|lgplv3+.

>>     I thought this was what this recent addition to the maintainers
>>     manual was about?
>>     http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Licensing-of-GNU-Packages

>> Exactly.

> Thank you!

> Torbjörn, is this the confirmation you were looking for?

Dear GMP maintainers,

this thread seems to died. Is there anything I could to do to help
along with the decision?

Just to sum it up:

* GMP currently is LGPLv3+
* GnuTLS 3.x is using GMP (via nettle)
* There is some quite important software which uses GnuTLS is licensed
  GPLv2 (without the "or later" clause). The most important example is
  cups. This is blocking e.g. Ubuntu [1] or Debian [2] to upgrade GnuTLS to
  its latest feature release.
* GNU's suggested solution for this problem seems to be to dual license as
  GPLv2+/LGPLv3+ [3]

Thanks for considering this.

cu andreas


[1] Quoting changelog:

gnutls26 (2.12.14-5ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low
  * Start building gnutls-bin from this source package again, superseding
    the version in gnutls28: gnutls28's licensing is currently too strict
    for many of the free software packages built against it in Ubuntu main
    and we only want to support a single version.  Bump its version to
    achieve this.

[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.release/48975
[3]
http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Licensing-of-GNU-Packages
-- 
`What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are
so grateful to you.'
`I sew his ears on from time to time, sure'
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://gmplib.org/list-archives/gmp-devel/attachments/20120506/ef9e271d/attachment.bin>