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RE: license question

From: Gary Maxwell <gmaxwell_at_casabi.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:08:34 -0700

> We already provide:
>
> #1 - the COPYING license text
> #2 - the FAQ answering licensing questions
> #3 - the LICENSE-MIXING document describing the license situation for
> all
> possible third party libraries libcurl might use
> #4 - the DISTRO-DILEMMA document describing the GPL issue (this document
> might be a bit outdated atm)
>
> (all of these are also available on the web site)
>
> The fact that the license is a MIT license derivate also lets you read up
> about it on numerous other places on the net about your freedoms and
> responsibilities with it.
>
> I'm not against more documents and further details, I just don't think
> adding
> one to the pile is what will make the pointy haired bosses of the world to
> suddenly start using libcurl.
>

But libcurl does not include the licenses for open source code bundled with libcurl. These cannot be aggregated under libcurl's license. The one example that gave me cause for concern, is from security.c. (I assume the "rewrite" mentioned in the comments has not occurred.) My understanding is that this copyright notice must be included with binary distributions, and failure to do so leaves curl/libcurl open to legal action, even if such action is a remote possibility.

-GaryM

/* This source code was modified by Martin Hedenfalk <mhe_at_stacken.kth.se> for
 * use in Curl. His latest changes were done 2000-09-18.
 *
 * It has since been patched and modified a lot by Daniel Stenberg
 * <daniel_at_haxx.se> to make it better applied to curl conditions, and to make
 * it not use globals, pollute name space and more. This source code awaits a
 * rewrite to work around the paragraph 2 in the BSD licenses as explained
 * below.
 *
 * Copyright (c) 1998, 1999 Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
 * (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden).
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
 * are met:
 *
 * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
 * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 *
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 *....
Received on 2008-03-12