Hi Daniel,

thank you for answering so quickly. You are right - the BSD 3 clause is considered to be compatible, so apparently such a clause is ok. While I do not fully understand the reasoning behind that, that is good enough for me. Thank you.

Best regards,

Hauke

> On 10 Jun 2018, at 13:46, Daniel Stenberg <daniel_at_haxx.se> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2018, Hauke Duden wrote:
>
>> The libcurl license is based on the MIT license and the normal MIT license is compatible with both GPLv2 and GPLv3. But the curl license has an additional clause at the end that places an additional restriction on the user of the library (namely not being allowed to use the author's names for advertising).
>
> First I should add that I think it was a mistake to edit the license to begin with and it would've been easier and better to just have used the MIT one or the 3-clause BSD perhaps. The edits were done a long time ago.
>
> I don't think that's a reason for concern and hundreds if not thousands of GPL-using programs using libcurl seem to agree with me.
>
> That clause is inspired by and similar to the 3-clause BSD license[1] which FSF sees no compatiblity problems with [2]. I would guess because it doesn't limit the distribution nor the or the use of the source code, just advertising and promotion of products built upon it.
>
> [1] = https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause
> [2] = https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#ModifiedBSD
>
>> Is GPLv2 compatibility even something that is desired for libcurl?
>
> Yes, very much so.
>
> --
>
> / daniel.haxx.se
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Unsubscribe: https://cool.haxx.se/list/listinfo/curl-library
> Etiquette: https://curl.haxx.se/mail/etiquette.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: https://cool.haxx.se/list/listinfo/curl-library
Etiquette: https://curl.haxx.se/mail/etiquette.html
Received on 2018-06-10