On Tue, 28 May 2002 14:52:53 -0700, "Ben Gertzfield" wrote:

Howdy GIMP folks. Here are some points in the licensing of GIMP that need to be addressed. Specifically, there's a lot of code that requires that the authors be mentioned in the documentation, but there is no mention of them anywhere.

Hmmm... This is bad, because this is not compatible with the GPL. So we must either stop distributing these files or distribute them in a separate package that is not GPL'ed.

I'm not really up to speed with these issues, so if discussion is needed, please bring it up with Anthony DeRobertis , the originator of this bug report.

I don't know if you want to get a copy of the messages and if I should also CC them to the debian bug tracker. If not, please mention it on the gimp-developer mailing list before others do the same mistake as I am doing right now. ;-)

Here is a sorted list of files that have copyright notices that are not compatible with the GPL (derivatives of the BSD license with the so-called "advertising clause"):

./gimp-1.2.1.in (Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis) ./gimptool-1.2.1.in (Owen Taylor, Manish Singh) ./install-sh (M.I.T.) ./plug-ins/common/edge.c (Jef Poskanzer) ./plug-ins/common/gif.c (David Koblas) ./plug-ins/common/mail.c (CMU and Bellcore) ./plug-ins/common/nlfilt.c (Graeme W. Gill) ./plug-ins/common/tiff.c (Patrick J. Naughton) ./plug-ins/webbrowser/webbrowser.c (Netscape, Jamie Zawinski, Andreas Stolcke, Solbourne Computer) ./plug-ins/script-fu/interp_slib.c (Paradigm Associates, Inc.) ./tools/gimp-remote.c (Netscape, Jamie Zawinski)

The first two files in the list are manual pages copyrighted by Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis and by Owen Taylor and Manish Singh. I think that the "advertising clause" is an accident and they did not intend to have a license that is not compatible with the GPL, but we should ask them to be sure (the copyright holders are the only ones who are allowed to change the terms of the license).

The "install-sh" file is part of automake. It should not be too hard to replace it by a similar file that is compatible with the GPL, because this is a relatively short shell script. I thought that the automake developers had already changed this file, but apparently not.

The other files are more annoying. The first thing to do would be to remove the GPL statement at the top of theses files because it is incompatible with the "advertising clause". From a legal point of view, these files cannot be distributed as they are now, so we must at least change their license immediately and then think about what we can do with these non-GPL files.

We cannot simply remove them, because Script-Fu is an important part of the GIMP and gimp-remote is required for some desktop environments. Even if gimp-remote should be replaced sooner or later (see http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52866), it would be too hard to do it before the 1.2.4 release. It would also be too hard to rewrite the other plug-ins now (except maybe for the edge filter, which uses well-known algorithms).

The two remaining options are to split the GIMP distribution in two packages or to change the license of the distribution: - If we split the distribution, we could have one tar archive with GPL files (or GPL-compatible files) and another one with the files mentioned above. This would also cover some patent problems for the GIF and TIFF plug-ins. However, it would not like to move Script-Fu out of the main GIMP distribution. - The other option is to change the license for the distribution and to add the required copyright notices in the GIMP help files. For the license of the package, we could state the the GIMP distribution is simply aggregating several independent packages that have their own license. We would also have to notify those who build binary packages about the license change. However, I am not sure that it is even possible to have a valid license for the aggregate, while still respecting the GPL and the old-style BSD-ish licenses.

I have created a GIMP bug report for this issue. You can get it from Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83362

-Raphaël

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 07:26, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

Hmmm... This is bad, because this is not compatible with the GPL. So we must either stop distributing these files or distribute them in a separate package that is not GPL'ed.

Yep. And a lot of people are depending on the package being GPLd (most GNU/Linux distros, for example).

I don't know if you want to get a copy of the messages and if I should also CC them to the debian bug tracker.

Please at least CC 148412@bugs.debian.org or 148412-quiet@bugs.debian.org

Also, you might want to set a CC on the bugzilla bug to 148412-quiet@bugs.debian.org. Shouldn't result in an ack war.

Here is a sorted list of files that have copyright notices that are not compatible with the GPL (derivatives of the BSD license with the so-called "advertising clause"):

If that's just from sorting my list, then beware that I just did some greps. I didn't actually read the licenses at the top of every file.

I just grepped for 'supporting'.

The two remaining options are to split the GIMP distribution in two packages or to change the license of the distribution: - If we split the distribution, we could have one tar archive with GPL files (or GPL-compatible files) and another one with the files mentioned above. This would also cover some patent problems for the GIF and TIFF plug-ins. However, it would not like to move Script-Fu out of the main GIMP distribution.

This isn't really an option, at least for Debian. Debian couldn't distribute the split-out files because it'd violate the GPL on the rest of gimp(!). Same as how Debian doesn't distribute things that link GPL'd code to OpenSSL.

GIMP would need an exception to the GPL saying this is OK.

Probably not to practical to change the GIMP license.

- The other option is to change the license for the distribution [...] However, I am not sure that it is even possible to have a valid license for the aggregate, while still respecting the GPL and the old-style BSD-ish licenses.

I don't believe it is. See GPL clause 7:

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. [...]

The 'any other reason' in this case would be the old BSD license.

Raphaël Quinet wrote:

On Tue, 28 May 2002 14:52:53 -0700, "Ben Gertzfield" wrote:

Howdy GIMP folks. Here are some points in the licensing of GIMP that need to be addressed. Specifically, there's a lot of code that requires that the authors be mentioned in the documentation, but there is no mention of them anywhere.

Hmmm... This is bad, because this is not compatible with the GPL. So we must either stop distributing these files or distribute them in a separate package that is not GPL'ed.

Why is giving credit to an author incompatible with the GPL? I see no reason why an advertising clause need cause an issue... could someone explain it to me?

Dave.

On Wed, 29 May 2002, David Neary wrote:

Hmmm... This is bad, because this is not compatible with the GPL. So we must either stop distributing these files or distribute them in a separate package that is not GPL'ed.

Why is giving credit to an author incompatible with the GPL?

It's not the credit-giving (typically, authors usually credit themselves in the file header) but the requirement of prominent advertizing. I'm not a license guru, but I think the GPL explicitly forbids extra license requirements above those specified in the GPL itself. So if you want an advertizing clause, you have to use a modified version of the GPL or combine the code with a modified version of the GPL, thus non-GPL.

In fact, when I now searched gnu.org, I found this: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCOrigBSD

I see no reason why an advertising clause need cause an issue... could someone explain it to me?

This is most likely not the proper list for general licensing discussions or questions. I'm sure there are better suited lists for that.

Christian

0

On 29 May 2002 08:17:16 -0400, "Anthony DeRobertis" wrote:

Also, you might want to set a CC on the bugzilla bug to 148412-quiet@bugs.debian.org. Shouldn't result in an ack war.

Unfortunately, this is not possible because "148412-quiet@bugs.debian.org" is not a valid Bugzilla account. It's a pity that Bugzilla accepts only valid Bugzilla accounts in the "CC" field, but I suppose that it makes sense in some cases.

Here is a sorted list of files that have copyright notices that are not compatible with the GPL (derivatives of the BSD license with the so-called "advertising clause"):

If that's just from sorting my list, then beware that I just did some greps. I didn't actually read the licenses at the top of every file.

I just grepped for 'supporting'.

I also did a couple of greps for several variations of "copyright notice" and "documentation". I think that your list was correct. I only added a note about ./plug-ins/common/gifload.c to Bugzilla #83362.

The two remaining options are to split the GIMP distribution in two packages or to change the license of the distribution: - If we split the distribution, we could have one tar archive with GPL files (or GPL-compatible files) and another one with the files mentioned above. This would also cover some patent problems for the GIF and TIFF plug-ins. However, it would not like to move Script-Fu out of the main GIMP distribution.

This isn't really an option, at least for Debian. Debian couldn't distribute the split-out files because it'd violate the GPL on the rest of gimp(!). Same as how Debian doesn't distribute things that link GPL'd code to OpenSSL.

GIMP would need an exception to the GPL saying this is OK.

Probably not to practical to change the GIMP license.

The files that are affected by this problem are independent plug-ins and one standalone tool (gimp-remote.c), so they are not linked with the other parts of the program. The libraries used by the plug-ins use the LGPL, not the GPL. The only plug-in that contains a significant amount of GPL code and GPL-incompatible code is the Script-Fu interpreter. But for most plug-ins, it should not be too difficult to contact the authors and ask for an exception.

This exception would make it possible to distribute the plug-ins without license conflicts, even if they would still have to be distributed separately from the main GIMP package.

- The other option is to change the license for the distribution [...] However, I am not sure that it is even possible to have a valid license for the aggregate, while still respecting the GPL and the old-style BSD-ish licenses.

I don't believe it is. See GPL clause 7: [...]

Well, I'm not sure. If the GIMP tarball is considered to be a "mere aggregate" of independent software packages (the main application and its plug-ins), it may be possible to have a license for the tarball that allows it to be distributed without violating the GPL or the old-style BSD licenses.

Something like this may work (this is a quick draft and it is probably incorrect, but hopefully you will get the general idea): "This archive of source files is an aggregate of several independent software packages, each one covered by its own license. The code in the plug-ins directory is not part of the main GIMP application. Most of the code is covered by the General Public License (GPL) or Lesser GPL but some plug-ins require a copyright notice to be added to the documentation. Please check the individual licenses if you use, modify or distribute any files from the plug-ins directory."

In any case, we have to resolve the license conflicts for the files that include both GPL and GPL-incompatible code. But once this is done, I believe that we could still proceed with both options: split the distribution in two packages, or state that the package is an aggregate of individual programs.

-Raphaël

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 01:26:07PM +0200, Rapha

On 29 May 2002, at 16:36, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

On 29 May 2002 08:17:16 -0400, "Anthony DeRobertis" wrote:

Here is a sorted list of files that have copyright notices that are not compatible with the GPL (derivatives of the BSD license with the so-called "advertising clause"):

If that's just from sorting my list, then beware that I just did some greps. I didn't actually read the licenses at the top of every file.

I just grepped for 'supporting'.

I also did a couple of greps for several variations of "copyright notice" and "documentation". I think that your list was correct. I only added a note about ./plug-ins/common/gifload.c to Bugzilla #83362.

On request of someone here, I did a in-depth study of the licenses used in the GIMP 1.2.2's plug-ins, three-quarters of a year ago.

I published the results at .

The idea was that Sven and Mitch would write the authors to see if we could GPL the plug-ins that weren't GPL'ed already.

I don't know what happened to that. (Sven? Mitch?)

On a side note: Guile advertises itself as _the_ extension programming language. It's part of the GNU project, so I assume it's GPL'ed.

I am not a programmer, so I don't know how hard or easy it would be to use Guile as a drop-in replacement. The homepage makes it look very
simple to write a Guile supporting app in C, but again, I cannot really judge if this is indeed as simple.

(Short tutorial of writing a plotting program with a Guile interface under X Windows: )

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 10:36, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

The libraries used by the plug-ins use the LGPL, not the GPL.

I'm glad to hear that! Since the LGPL allows you to link proprietary code, I imagine that old-style BSD is just fine. So those just need splitting out at most.

The only plug-in that contains a significant amount of GPL code and GPL-incompatible code is the Script-Fu interpreter.

That will be a mess to clean up.

But
for most plug-ins, it should not be too difficult to contact the authors and ask for an exception.

It'd certainly be easiest if they were willing to license under the GPL.

I don't believe it is. See GPL clause 7: [...]

Well, I'm not sure. If the GIMP tarball is considered to be a "mere aggregate" of independent software packages (the main application and its plug-ins),

I'm not sure how the plugins are used by GIMP.

The FSF says also:

It's very arguable that GIMP and its plugins are effectively one program. Especially since GIMP plugins can only be used from GIMP, integrate into the mnus of GIMP, etc.

On 30 May 2002, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 10:36, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

I'm not sure how the plugins are used by GIMP.

gimp opens a pipe, spawns the child plugin process, and communicates using a relatively simple protocol.

The FSF says
also:

It's very arguable that GIMP and its plugins are effectively one program. Especially since GIMP plugins can only be used from GIMP, integrate into the mnus of GIMP, etc.

There are other programs that can run gimp plugins. (well, gimp 1.0 plugins at least)

Of course, the question of plugins is almost academic, becuase the copyright holders of GIMP have explicitly stated that they don't consider propriatary plugins to be infringing. If they won't sue over it, who can?

(Note that I am NOT suggesting that we shouldn't make GIMP's licensing kosher)

Rockwalrus

On Wed, 29 May 2002 18:30:43 +0100, "Nick Lamb" wrote:

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 01:26:07PM +0200, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

./gimp-1.2.1.in (Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis) ./gimptool-1.2.1.in (Owen Taylor, Manish Singh)

This is gibberish. Someone bolted on some boiler plate which claims that the whole of the GIMP is covered by an obnoxious advertising clause. Most likely this happened because they copied an existing manual page source from another project.

AFAIK, that license refers to the manual pages, not to the whole program. It was certainly added there by mistake, considering who the authors of these manual pages are. So in that case it is probably safe to fix the license immediately.

The presence of this boilerplate is a documentation bug, and can be fixed by removing the boilerplate or replacing it with a statement about the GNU GPL.

The GPL is not really appropriate for the manual pages. Instead, we should use a BSD-like license without the advertising clause. So we can keep what is already there and just remove that requirement from the license. We could also switch to the FDL, but that would be a significant change that must be discussed with the authors first.

Ben is even complaining about a manual page that he himself wrote, claiming that it is copyrighted software written by other people. Please don't substitute 'grep' for a working brain.

Note that Ben was not the one complaining. He simply forwarded the Debian bug report from Anthony DeRobertis. And the license is wrong anyway, regardless of who wrote the manual pages.

./plug-ins/common/gif.c (David Koblas) ./plug-ins/common/tiff.c (Patrick J. Naughton)

We already knew about at least these and I was told (on #gimp I think) that it was not a problem.

Whoever told you that was wrong. The text of both licenses includes: "provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation." This is the advertising clause that is not compatible with the GPL. As a result, these files cannot be distributed with the GIMP as they are now.

The other files are more annoying. The first thing to do would be to remove the GPL statement at the top of theses files because it is incompatible with the "advertising clause".

That's nice but you can't redistribute my code under this alternative license. So you must rewind to a Gimp 0.6x era tiff.c plugin if that's the preferred solution.

This is a serious problem. If we cannot contact the authors of the code that was borrowed for various plug-ins and ask them for permission to re-license their code under the GPL, then the only other option is to use a different license than the GPL for these plug-ins. If this is not possible (as in your case), then we must remove the plug-ins from the distribution until someone finds the time to re-write the code.

-Raphaël

On Fri, 31 May 2002, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

./plug-ins/common/gif.c (David Koblas) ./plug-ins/common/tiff.c (Patrick J. Naughton)

We already knew about at least these and I was told (on #gimp I think) that it was not a problem.

Whoever told you that was wrong. The text of both licenses includes: "provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation." This is the advertising clause that is not compatible with the GPL. As a result, these files cannot be distributed with the GIMP as they are now.

Wouldn't it only have to appear in documentatoin supporting *the gif and tiff plugins themselves*, not GIMP in general? They are, after all, separate programs.

Rockwalrus

Hi,

Someone on c.g.apps.gimp was asking about this old 1.0 plugin, so I quickly patched it to work under 1.2. (The new source is at http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hodsond/lsystem.html).

I'm having some trouble contacting the author. Does anybody know anything about him?

What's the situation with abandoned plugins, anyway?

Hi,

RaphaXl Quinet writes:

./gimp-1.2.1.in (Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis) ./gimptool-1.2.1.in (Owen Taylor, Manish Singh)

This is gibberish. Someone bolted on some boiler plate which claims that the whole of the GIMP is covered by an obnoxious advertising clause. Most likely this happened because they copied an existing manual page source from another project.

AFAIK, that license refers to the manual pages, not to the whole program. It was certainly added there by mistake, considering who the authors of these manual pages are. So in that case it is probably safe to fix the license immediately.

ack. I'll leave this up to Yosh since he's one of the authors and may change these lines.

Note that Ben was not the one complaining. He simply forwarded the Debian bug report from Anthony DeRobertis. And the license is wrong anyway, regardless of who wrote the manual pages.

./plug-ins/common/gif.c (David Koblas) ./plug-ins/common/tiff.c (Patrick J. Naughton)

We already knew about at least these and I was told (on #gimp I think) that it was not a problem.

Whoever told you that was wrong. The text of both licenses includes: "provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation." This is the advertising clause that is not compatible with the GPL. As a result, these files cannot be distributed with the GIMP as they are now.

I don't see the problem. The code has the copyright notice as is required by the original license. We explicitely state the original authors. Where the heck is the problem?? Same applies for gimp-remote and the webbrowser plug-in.

Salut, Sven

On 07 Jun 2002 16:35:46 +0200, "Sven Neumann" wrote:

RaphaXl Quinet writes:

./plug-ins/common/gif.c (David Koblas) ./plug-ins/common/tiff.c (Patrick J. Naughton)

We already knew about at least these and I was told (on #gimp I think) that it was not a problem.

Whoever told you that was wrong. The text of both licenses includes: "provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation." This is the advertising clause that is not compatible with the GPL. As a result, these files cannot be distributed with the GIMP as they are now.

I don't see the problem. The code has the copyright notice as is required by the original license. We explicitely state the original authors. Where the heck is the problem?? Same applies for gimp-remote and the webbrowser plug-in.

Unfortunately, the license used in these files contains the "advertising clause" that is incompatible with the GPL. The copyright notice and the permission notice must appear not only in the code, but also in the supporting documentation (help pages, GIMP manual, whatever). This extends to any derivative works, so this is not compatible with the GPL because anyone re-using this code for any purpose would be required to add these notices in the code and in the documentation. The GPL does not allow that kind of restrictions: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

Another problem is that the GIMP (the whole package, not only the core) is usually advertised as being released under the GPL (or GPL + LGPL). This is what is mentioned on our home page (www.gimp.org) and this is what appears in most binary distributions. This is stated for example in gimp.spec.in, which creates gimp.spec for RPM distros.

The GPL cannot be applied to the whole package, because of the problems mentioned above. So we have to change the license for the source tarball and try to inform those who build binary packages, or stop distributing the files that are not GPL-compatible.

Reminder: the corresponding report in our Bugzilla is: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83362

-Raphaël

Hi,

RaphaXl Quinet writes:

Unfortunately, the license used in these files contains the "advertising clause" that is incompatible with the GPL. The copyright notice and the permission notice must appear not only in the code, but also in the supporting documentation (help pages, GIMP manual, whatever). This extends to any derivative works, so this is not compatible with the GPL because anyone re-using this code for any purpose would be required to add these notices in the code and in the documentation. The GPL does not allow that kind of restrictions: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

I don't see any problem in adding the necessary info to the documentation that comes with the respective plug-ins. IMO it should be sufficient to change the gimp-remote man-page and add the info to the help-pages for the affected plug-ins. We could also mention the facts in our README but then we have IMO advertized the facts well enough to satisfy everyone. But, of course, IANAL. Perhaps we should ask the FSF for legal advice?

Another problem is that the GIMP (the whole package, not only the core) is usually advertised as being released under the GPL (or GPL + LGPL). This is what is mentioned on our home page (www.gimp.org) and this is what appears in most binary distributions. This is stated for example in gimp.spec.in, which creates gimp.spec for RPM distros.

The GPL cannot be applied to the whole package, because of the problems mentioned above. So we have to change the license for the source tarball and try to inform those who build binary packages, or stop distributing the files that are not GPL-compatible.

I don't agree. The core and libgimp is GPL and LGPL and should be advertized as such. Noone will ever link against one of the affected plug-ins and calling them through the PDB shouldn't be an issue.

Salut, Sven

On 13 Jun 2002, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

RaphaXl Quinet writes:

I don't agree. The core and libgimp is GPL and LGPL and should be advertized as such. Noone will ever link against one of the affected plug-ins and calling them through the PDB shouldn't be an issue.

And if they do, they will most assuredly see the copyright statement and license in the source.

Rockwalrus

On 13 Jun 2002 21:18:52 +0200, "Sven Neumann" wrote:

RaphaXl Quinet writes:

Unfortunately, the license used in these files contains the "advertising clause" that is incompatible with the GPL. The copyright notice and the permission notice must appear not only in the code, but also in the supporting documentation [...]

I don't see any problem in adding the necessary info to the documentation that comes with the respective plug-ins. IMO it should be sufficient to change the gimp-remote man-page and add the info to the help-pages for the affected plug-ins. We could also mention the facts in our README but then we have IMO advertized the facts well enough to satisfy everyone. But, of course, IANAL. Perhaps we should ask the FSF for legal advice?

This could work as long as the GIMP tarball can be considered as an aggregate of independent programs that are released under separate licenses. Although this is the case from our point of view, I am not sure that a lawyer (playing the devil's advocate) would see it in the same way because they are always distributed as a single package (source tarball or binary packages). I think that we should at least include a statement about that in the distribution.

If this works, then there are still two issues to be solved:

- We have to remove or change all GPL parts in the plug-ins that contain code that is not GPL-compatible (TIFF, GIF, Script-Fu, ...). If the authors agree, then the license for these plug-ins could be changed to a BSD license or anything that does not conflict with the code that is not GPL-compatible. So we have to get in touch with all authors and check that no part of the code was borrowed from another GPL program for which we do not have the copyright. If we cannot change the license for these plug-ins, we cannot distribute them because they are currently linking GPL-incompatible code with GPL code. The FSF could give some legal advice for this, but I doubt that they would say anything different from what I wrote because there are not too many options available when the code contains several parts with incompatible licenses. Either we change the license on our code to use something else than the GPL, or we rewrite the other parts of the code so that they are GPL-compatible.

- We have to state that the GIMP tarball (the whole package) cannot be covered by the GPL because it contains some programs (plug-ins) that would then be released under a different license.

The GPL cannot be applied to the whole package, because of the problems mentioned above. So we have to change the license for the source tarball and try to inform those who build binary packages, or stop distributing the files that are not GPL-compatible.

I don't agree. The core and libgimp is GPL and LGPL and should be advertized as such. Noone will ever link against one of the affected plug-ins and calling them through the PDB shouldn't be an issue.

I am refering to the copyright statement and license that should apply to the whole package. We cannot say that the package is released under the GPL (even if the core and most plug-ins are GPL or LGPL) because it contains some non-GPL parts. As I wrote in my previous message, the current RPM spec file has a copyright statement for the whole package that says "GPL + LGPL". This is wrong. We have to mention that the package contains some parts that are covered by a different license. Or we have to split it in two or more packages: one containing the main program and the supporting libraries (it would only be GPL and LGPL) and one or more containing the plug-ins (using the GPL or BSD licenses).

-Raphaël

OK, so the big problem is Script-Fu because it's fairly embedded and it's somewhat hairy. The ordinary plugins aren't much of a problem, in the very worst case they can be removed from the distribution temporarily.

Surely the #1 thing someone should be doing (preferably someone who actually knows about Script-Fu) is to contact the copyright holders for the "obnoxiously licensed" Script-Fu code and ask them very politely if they would let us include that code in some GPL software, with proper credits of course, but without the unacceptable license terms ?

Please someone figure out who to contact, mail them and CC the list.

Nick.

On 14 Jun 2002, at 15:19, Nick Lamb wrote:

OK, so the big problem is Script-Fu because it's fairly embedded and it's somewhat hairy. The ordinary plugins aren't much of a problem, in the very worst case they can be removed from the distribution temporarily.

Surely the #1 thing someone should be doing (preferably someone who actually knows about Script-Fu) is to contact the copyright holders for the "obnoxiously licensed" Script-Fu code and ask them very politely if they would let us include that code in some GPL software, with proper credits of course, but without the unacceptable license terms ?

Please someone figure out who to contact, mail them and CC the list.

I thought the older plan was to put in a whole new Scheme interpreter. Wouldn't Guile work? That is already GPL'ed.

Hi,

"Branko Collin" writes:

On 14 Jun 2002, at 15:19, Nick Lamb wrote:

OK, so the big problem is Script-Fu because it's fairly embedded and it's somewhat hairy. The ordinary plugins aren't much of a problem, in the very worst case they can be removed from the distribution temporarily.

Surely the #1 thing someone should be doing (preferably someone who actually knows about Script-Fu) is to contact the copyright holders for the "obnoxiously licensed" Script-Fu code and ask them very politely if they would let us include that code in some GPL software, with proper credits of course, but without the unacceptable license terms ?

Please someone figure out who to contact, mail them and CC the list.

I thought the older plan was to put in a whole new Scheme interpreter. Wouldn't Guile work? That is already GPL'ed.

that is still the plan and yes, I consider to use Guile. This won't happen in the 1.2 tree however so it won't fix the problem there.

Salut, Sven

Sven,

I thought the older plan was to put in a whole new Scheme interpreter. Wouldn't Guile work? That is already GPL'ed.

that is still the plan and yes, I consider to use Guile. This won't happen in the 1.2 tree however so it won't fix the problem there.

Perhaps this has been hashed out before, but why not use Python instead of Scheme?

Cheers,

Robin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.OpenSourceProgrammers.org
www.LinuxMovies.org

Hi,

"Robin Rowe" writes:

Perhaps this has been hashed out before, but why not use Python instead of Scheme?

there is a Python binding for GIMP already (although it is pretty much unmaintained). This is however completely unrelated to the question which Scheme interpreter to use for Script-Fu.

Salut, Sven