Emacs chooses Bazaar

Posted Mar 13, 2008 8:51 UTC (Thu) by bboissin (subscriber, #29506)
Parent article: Emacs chooses Bazaar

Did canonical give the copyright of bzr to the FSF ? Or do they still own it (which makes them
able to use bzr in non-free apps like launchpad).

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Emacs chooses Bazaar

Posted Mar 13, 2008 9:16 UTC (Thu) by diocles (guest, #46753) [Link]

Canonical kept the copyright.

But, even if they didn't, they would still be able to use bzr in Launchpad. For starters, bzr
does not necessarily have to be so closely tied into the Launchpad code such that the terms of
the GPL would apply to the combination. Secondly, they're not distributing binaries or source
of Launchpad, so they would not have to release the source anyway.

Launchpad isn't non-free as such, it's just another big custom web-app. (But that's a whole
different debate.) I'm told the Launchpad team are still working hard on getting the code into
a good enough shape to release.

Emacs chooses Bazaar

Posted Mar 15, 2008 17:32 UTC (Sat) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link] (1 responses)

But canonical does appear to be relicensing the code for proprietary software; refer to their web site:

[...] If you want to embed Bazaar into your products under a different license, please contact us.

How could that ever be appropriate for a GNU project is beyond me.

Emacs chooses Bazaar

Posted Mar 16, 2008 1:26 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Um, the license grantback you get when you fill in a copyright assignment 
form has always (as far as I know) allowed you to do that (with the stuff 
you originally had copyright on before signing it over).