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From: "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>
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Subject: RE: GPL'd dictionaries (was Re: ftp.services.openoffice.org?)
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2011 14:10:38 -0700
Organization: NuovoDoc
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+1 I heartily agree with Dave's suggestion.

The issue has been made very clear by Andrea and I think it would be =
good to raise an issue on the LEGAL JIRA.  (Registration required, but I =
don't think committer status is needed.)  Also, legal-discuss@ =
apache.org is an useful place, but my experience is that eventually a =
LEGAL JIRA issue will obtain more consistent attention.

I also think Pedro raises an important concern.  My sense of other =
materials I have seen about that is binaries (or at least not =
human-readable and editable) might work since it is possible to make it =
clear that a non-Apache license applies and there is no confusion by =
having source anywhere in a release for something with an unacceptable =
license.  I don't know how this applies to the present case.  I suspect =
it has some bearing on how safe inclusion of various dictionaries in =
binary distributions is seen to be.

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Fisher [mailto:dave2wave@comcast.net]=20
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 12:57
To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: GPL'd dictionaries (was Re: ftp.services.openoffice.org?)

HI Andrea,

This looks like some good questions for Apache Legal. You should send =
this to legal-discuss@a.o.

Regards,
Dave

On Nov 6, 2011, at 11:06 AM, Andrea Pescetti wrote:

> On 05/11/2011 Gianluca Turconi wrote:
>> 2011/11/5 Pedro Giffuni
>>> I have been looking at the situation of the dictionaries,
>>> and particular the italian dictionary.
>>> You are right that it will not be covered by the SGA.
>=20
> Sure, and to be more precise there are no portions of which Oracle has =
the copyright in the Italian dictionary. And we are discussing about =
three completeley separate tools (this is true of all languages): a =
dictionary (used for spell-checking), a thesaurus (for synonyms) and =
hyphenations patterns. Each has its own licence and copyright holders; =
in most cases, hyphenation patterns come from the LaTeX project.
>=20
>>> Perhaps more worrying is that the italian dictionary is
>>> the only dictionary under the GPL; most others are triple
>>> licensed (LGPL/MPL/GPL).
>>> We are not allowed to use it, so it will be removed
>>> from the SVN server for sure.
>=20
> The fundamental thing to consider here is that dictionaries cannot be =
considered like libraries, for the following reasons:
> - OpenOffice.org dictionaries are not code; their binary form is =
coincident with their source form.
> - OpenOffice.org dictionaries are not a dependency: they are pluggable =
data files, and they are packaged (all of them, even in the installer =
for native builds) as extensions to remark that there is no dependency =
whatsoever on them.
> - OpenOffice.org dictionaries fall in the "mere aggregation" provision =
in the GPL license; even though it is customary to distribute a package =
containing, say, the Italian version of OpenOffice.org and the Italian =
dictionary, it is considered the same as distributing an Ubuntu ISO =
file, containing software with different licenses aggregated together.
>=20
> The existing Apache policy probably assumes that we are talking about =
code and that the (L)GPL libraries constitute a dependency, and it was =
probably built by examining what the implications of (L)GPL components =
would have been in that case. But this is a much different situation.
>=20
>>> I am not a lawyer and I don't have any idea how the
>>> GPL could be enforced in this case, but things are not nice.
>=20
> I can't understand these worries about enforcing the GPL. We even got =
an answer from the Free Software Foundation that said it is absolutely =
OK to include GPL dictionaries into OpenOffice.org, since it is "mere =
aggregation"; see the (long) story in
> https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3D65039
>=20
>> We've discussed a lot about this issue, but  there isn't any =
consensus yet
>> about *how *to solve the problem, in a pragmatic way that doesn't =
include a
>> license change.
>=20
> Gianluca is right, in our situation we won't be able to change the =
license of the dictionary and thesaurus (at least, not to Apache =
License); we might get the hyphenation patterns released under the =
Apache License, but since virtually all of them are taken from the LaTeX =
project it's probably better that the legal team checks whether it's =
fine to import from the LaTeX project with the existing license.
>=20
>> An AOOo without a native language GUI and linguistic tools would be =
just
>> useless outside the anglosaxon world and, indeed, a rather disastrous
>> presentation of the new project for people who don't speak English.
>=20
> Sure, especially considering that the project description says that =
OpenOffice.org supports 110 languages...
>=20
> What I would recommend is:
>=20
> 1) Recheck the Apache policy and find out the rationale behind it; I =
have nothing to teach to the legal team, but this is a very rare case =
where the "virality" of GPL does not apply.
>=20
> 2) See if we can find a way to keep dictionaries as they are; note =
that no dictionary is developed in the OOo trunk, they are synchronized =
from time to time, usually before a release; the Italian dictionary SVN =
trunk, for example, is not in the OOo sources. Even just the possibility =
to provide an extension that can be included in binary releases would be =
OK for me.
>=20
> 3) If there is really no way to include a GPL extension this way, then =
we should think about downloading the extension at installation time. =
But we managed to get Sun and the FSF agree to ship dictionaries in the =
most convenient way (i.e., included in the installer), so we might =
succeed this time as well.
>=20
> Regards,
>  Andrea.