Hi,

Would you clarify an issue for me, please, concerning GPL compliance or otherwise? I have CCed this address with a reference to a discussion on the gimp-developer mailing list.

In the GIMP source code, there are several pieces of code which have come from outside sources over the years. Some code is not licenced under the GPL explicitly, and it has come to our attention a few months ago that we should relicence this code under the GPL, or stop distributing it as part of the GIMP.

We have had some problems contacting some of the authors (some of the code in question was written around 1990), and recently I have been wondering if we are being excessively pedantic in seeking explicit permission from the author to relicence.

The code in question is licenced in the following manner (approximately) -

/* Copyright John Smith 1990, 1991, 1993 * Permission is granted to use this code for whatever you want * to do, as long as this comment is maintained in all modified * versions.
*/

This is the only requirement imposed by the original author.

Could you advise us whether this type of licence is compatible with the GPL, and whether we may legally relicence this code to the GPL while maintaining compliance with the wishes of the original author?

Thank you in advance, Dave Neary.