This is the mail archive of the libc-locales@sourceware.org mailing list for the GNU libc locales project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Many locale definitions need license change


Hello locale maintainers,

My name is Brett Smith; I handle various license-related issues at the
FSF.  We recently learned that several locale definitions included with
glibc have a license that says "Distribution and use is free, also for
commercial purposes."  Other definitions have an incomplete copy of this
license.

This license is not appropriate for part of glibc because it does not
grant the four freedoms of free software.  In particular, it does not
give people permission to modify the work.  This may make it difficult
to maintain the files in the future, or prevent people from forking
glibc.

Every locale definition distributed with glibc should have a free
software, GPL-compatible license.  Ideally, it would be either the GPL,
the LGPL, or perhaps the Expat license
(http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt) if the author wanted to use very
permissive terms.

If you are the author of some of the locale definition files under this
license, please change it.

If you have up-to-date contact information for some of the authors of
locale definition files affected by this change, please let me know.
Soon I'll be trying to contact them individually to get their permission
to make this change.

If there are any files that we can't get permission to relicense,
unfortunately we will need to replace them.

If anybody has questions about this, please feel free to contact me.

Best regards,

-- 
Brett Smith
License Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation

Support the FSF by becoming an Associate Member: http://fsf.org/jf



Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]