[SciPy-User] Central File Exchange for SciPy

[Robert Kern]

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 14:57, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> What viral licensing mess? Accidentally releasing GPLed code as part
>> of your code does *not* retroactively make the rest of your code GPLed
>> without your consent.
>
> Puzzled to explain, but by 'mess' I mean that, if you want to make
> code that does not violate the license terms, you will have to go back
> rip out the GPL parts, and if they've been in there for a while, it
> can be a mess.
>
> By 'accidentally relicense' I mean copy GPL code, make some small
> changes, and then enter a BSD license without realizing that you've
> just radically changed the licensing terms.
>
> I'm not quite sure what misunderstanding you are trying to correct.

It seemed like you were saying that one's own code would be
accidentally relicensed to GPL if you included GPLed code. You
ellipsized some critical nouns. :-) And it seemed to me that only this
drastic interpretation would warrant dramatic red flashing warning
signs.

In any event, I would not use "relicensing" to describe accidentally
labeling GPLed code as BSD. Only the copyright holders are able to
relicense. Anyone else going through the same motions just commits an
incorrect statement of fact. One that is usually trivial to discover
since most people, in my experience, do keep a note of where they got
a function from when they do copy-paste a snippet. If something goes
wrong, you want to know who to blame and where to get updates from.

-- 
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