[SciPy-dev] requesting feedback on/editing of scikits wiki-page

[Robert Kern]

Alexander Schmolck wrote:
> Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Alexander Schmolck wrote:
>>> Stefan van der Walt <stefan at sun.ac.za> writes:
>>>> You can still license *your* part of the software under the modified BSD
>>>> license.
>>> My understanding is you can't if it depends on the GPLed code. You'd have to
>>> write a non-GPL'ed drop-in replacement first.
>> Your understanding is incorrect. You can combine code under a GPL-compatible but
>> non-GPL license with GPLed code. The work as a whole must be distributed under
>> the terms of the GPL. The readline module in Python, for example, is distributed
>> under the PSF license just like the rest of Python. There is no drop-in
>> replacement for libreadline (I don't believe libedit has been a drop-in
>> replacement for many years, now).
> 
> Thanks for the clarification. The GPL is weaker then than I thought then,
> because that means you can rewrite a GPL'ed program or library piecewise thus
> eventually "liberating" it from the GPL. I am surprised that I haven't heard
> of anyone doing that -- apart from the likely bad karma, it seems like a
> reasonable strategy in certain cases... maybe because it's difficult to argue
> that it would be really clean-room...

It wouldn't be. That's why you haven't heard of anyone doing it.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
 that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
 an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco