Licensing ambiguities with GPL and LGPL - was Re: Can Samba co-operate?

[Jeremy Allison]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 01:53:06PM -0600, John Malmberg wrote:
> 
> The important question then becomes:
> 
> Why does Foobar, Inc. have less rights than all of their end users?

Quite simple. This is an erroneous conclusion.

> But any end user of Foobar, Inc.'s products who has no other connection 
> with Foobar, Inc. is allowed to create and distribute a GPL'ed plugin 
> that uses LIBSMBCLIENT, as long as that plug in is also GPL'ed.

No, distributing this is also disallowed by the GPL. If their plugin
requires libsmbclient, then it also must be GPL. If it is GPL, it
is not allowed to be distributed as a plugin for FooBar Inc.'s
proprietary code.

> In the whole world, only Foobar, Inc. is prohibited in distributing that 
>   module.

No, everyone is.

> IMHO: This makes the express prohibition unenforceable because it 
> violates the principle of equal protection.

Indeed. The relevent part of that paragraph is *IMHO*.

Neither you nor I are lawyers. If you want to explore these issues
further I suggest you hire one. We are represented by the FSF lawyer,
who has done a lot of work for us in the past. If you wish clarification
I can give you his contact details (off list) if you'd like.

> In 1999, I would not have had a conflict with your GPL policy if I 
> distributed the editor commands, but because of an employment change, It 
> now can definitely be an important legal point, if I chose to do it now.

I don't see what an employment change or time since 1999 has to
do with our licensing.

> LIBSMBCLIENT is one of the few GPLed products that have this clear
> conflict in their licensing terms.
> 
> 
> So you can understand why I have a particular interest with this issue.

No, not really. I don't see libsmbclient having a conflict at all.
It's GPL. You cannot use it in proprietary products, as plugins or
otherwise. What is so difficult about that ? What are you trying to
achieve here ?

Jeremy.