[Box Backup] Exclude lists

Chris Wilson boxbackup@fluffy.co.uk
Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:49:52 +0000 (GMT)


Hi Ben,

> You can link against a BSD project from a GPL project, no problem. It's 
> compatible that way. It's the other way which isn't compatible -- if a 
> modification is made under GPL then it cannot be accepted into the BSD 
> project.

I'd be very happy if you would allow me to distribute Box Backup and my 
program (Boxi, under the GPL) in the same package, but under two separate 
licenses. Any modifications that I make to Box in that package would of 
course be licensed under the Box license, not the GPL.

Would you prefer that I distribute an official tarball of Box and a set of 
patches within my package, or would including the Box source be enough? 
Since Boxi don't need all of Box Backup to build, I could trim it down to 
save space until such time as a system-wide shared library for Box is 
available.

> Adding extra conditions would mean that it would no longer be the GPL, which 
> could kind of defeat the object.

I would not mind too much if I had to add an extra clause to the GPL 
license for my code, requiring that all derived code had the attribution.

> I don't think I can give you permission to release the Box code under the 
> GPL. However, as I read the BSD license, there isn't a problem with just 
> including a lump of BSD code in a distribution as a separate entity. I 
> suggest you ask someone who knows!

Can anyone recommend someone for me to ask? I don't know any qualified 
software lawyers. Could the Free Software Foundation help? 
[http://www.fsf.org]

> Or perhaps you could require that Box Backup was built, and then link in the 
> .a files which are produced as part of the build process? Quite a handy set 
> of libraries.

That is what I currently do (using the built-in copy of the Box Backup 
source), and indeed they are :-)

> I'm sure the end result will be worth it.

Thanks, I appreciate all your help and hope I can contribute something 
useful in return.

Cheers, Chris.
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