GPL2 software inside wxWidgets / wxPython
Ryan Bergman
Greetings,
I was planning on using wxWidgets and wxPython for a small project that will distributed and I have some concerns about the wxWigets license. We scanned the packages for wxWigets and wxPython and found several packages that were licensed under GPl2 (including one by Richard Stallman himself). Is this allowed when invoking the wxWidgets exception clause? My lawyers seem to think that the licenses are incompatible. If they are not is there some kind of documentation or explanation from OSI on why not?
Here is a list of the packages that list GPL2 from our scan:
Thanks a lot!
- Dllar
- ComboBox (Motif?)
- LibTool (GNU GCC compiler?)
- Ansi2knr
- AutoConf
# dllar - a tool to build both a .dll and an .a file
# from a set of object (.o) files for EMX/OS2.
#
# Written by Andrew Zabolotny,
# Ported to Unix like shell by Stefan Neis,
#
* ComboBoxP.h - Das schon lange schmerzlich vermisste Combo-Box-
* Widget -- nun endlich auf fuer Motif!
* Wahlweise Motif 1.1 oder 1.2.
*
* Letzte Modifikation: 04.10.1995 Revisionsstand: 1.32a
*
* (c) 1993, 1994 Harald Albrecht
* Institut fuer Geometrie und Praktische Mathematik
* RWTH Aachen, Germany
If you want to do some more serious cross-platform programming with wxWidgets,
such as for GTK+ and Motif, you can now build two complete libraries and use
them concurrently.
# libtool.m4 - Configure libtool for the host system. -*-Shell-script-*-
## Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
## Free Software Foundation, Inc.
## Originally by Gordon Matzigkeit, 1996
/* ansi2knr.c */
/* Convert ANSI C function definitions to K&R ("traditional C") syntax
Copyright (C) 1989 Aladdin Enterprises. All rights reserved.
Copyright (C) 1988 Richard M. Stallman
# This file is part of Autoconf. -*- Autoconf -*-
# Programming languages support.
# Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
#
Vadim Zeitlin
RB> I was planning on using wxWidgets and wxPython for a small project that
RB> will distributed and I have some concerns about the wxWigets license. We
RB> scanned the packages for wxWigets and wxPython and found several packages
RB> that were licensed under GPl2 (including one by Richard Stallman himself).
Hello,
I don't think you have any cause for concern because you're only affected
by the licence of the code you link with and none of the examples you give
falls into this category.
RB> Here is a list of the packages that list GPL2 from our scan:
RB>
RB> Thanks a lot!
RB>
RB> - Dllar
This is a script used for building libraries and its licence doesn't
affect you any more than the licence of GNU compiler which you presumably
will be using for compiling your code, at least under Linux. Moreover, this
script is only used under OS/2 and I'd be surprised if you targeted it.
RB> - ComboBox (Motif?)
Yes, it's under GPL but it's only used in wxMotif and it's *not* used by
default precisely because of the licence. You have to actively enable it
(and I don't even know how would you do it to be honest).
RB> - LibTool (GNU GCC compiler?)
RB> - Ansi2knr
Those are not used by wxWidgets at all but are included as parts of 3rd
party libraries distributions. In any case, this is not code that you link
with.
RB> - AutoConf
Autoconf is used by wxWidgets itself but its licence concerns autoconf
itself and you're not affected by it when using wxWidgets.
Regards,
VZ
Ryan Bergman
Vadim Zeitlin
RB> Yes, but even if MY code does not link to it, how does wxWidgets itself get
RB> away with not being GLP2 if it does? This seems like a violation of GPL2.
wxWidgets itself doesn't link with any of this code neither ("links with"
relation is transitive, so if it did link with it, so would your code). In
fact, all of it except for the Motif combobox (not used, once again) is not
"code" at all but scripts used during the build process.
Regards,
VZ