kdepimlibs Licensing

[Allen Winter]

On Friday 07 November 2008 3:43:43 pm David Faure wrote:
> On Friday 07 November 2008, Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> > A Divendres 07 Novembre 2008, Tom Albers va escriure:
> > > Op vrijdag 07 november 2008 00:50 schreef u:
> > > > A Divendres 07 Novembre 2008, Allen Winter va escriure:
> > > > > Howdy,
> > > > >
> > > > > Would it be possible to relax the licensing requirements in kdepimlibs
> > > > > to permit GPL code? Currently, kdepimlibs requirements are the same as
> > > > > kdelibs; i.e. only LGPL, BSD, X11.
> > > > >
> > > > > There are at least 4 GPL libraries in kdepim (libkholidays, libksieve,
> > > > > kdgantt, libkleo) that would be very useful for kdebase, KOffice and
> > > > > extragear.
> > > > >
> > > > > For example:
> > > > > libkholidays could provide holiday info for calendar plasmoids
> > > > > libksieve could allow Mailody to implement IMAP sieve filters
> > > > > kgantt would allow KOffice Gantt charts without having to use the
> > > > > current svn external etc.
> > > > >
> > > > > Attempts at relicensing these libraries has failed or is very
> > > > > difficult. We have tried.
> > > > >
> > > > > I've been told that there was agreement at the last Akademy to allow
> > > > > kdepimlibs to have GPL code?? If wasn't there so this is 3rd hand info.
> > > > >
> > > > > I'd like an official answer.  Or another suggestion.
> > > > >
> > > > > Comments?
> > > >
> > > > I'm not at all involved in kdepimlibs besides roaming const & fixes :D
> > > > But this is my advice, if you are going to accept GPL libraries in
> > > > kdepimlibs adding a _gpl suffix to them seems a good idea so people
> > > > linking know they are linking to a GPL library.
> > > >
> > > > Albert
> > >
> > > dfaure pointed out that that would break bc...
> > 
> > Why? Those libraries that would get the gpl suffix are not public at the 
> > moment, so there's no bc to maintain, right?
> 
> Yeah I don't know the context. If no third party plugin/part/app relies on these libs
> then indeed there is no bc issue.
> 
Come to think of it... yeah, why would 3rd party stuff try to link to kdepim libraries?
I can't know for sure.  But really they shouldn't be doing that.

So updated plan:
 - put the source into kdepimlibs/gpl.
 - make sure the doxygen main pages say GPL on them
 - clearly state in the kdepimlibs/README and kdepimlibs/POLICIES file
    that there is GPL code in here
 - install a _gpl suffix to the installed libs, i.e. libfoo_gpl.so

Unless there are objections, I'd like to go ahead with this new plan.
Probably start moving stuff for next Monday.

-Allen