rtl-sdr @20191203-b5af355b: license is GPL-2, shouldn't it be GPL-2+ +/- LGPL-2.1+ ?

[tenzap]

Dear maintainer,

I noticed rtl-sdr's Portfile mentions license is GPL-2.

This is blocking the distribution of welle.io as a binary package. "welle.io-devel" is not distributable because its license "GPL-3+" conflicts with license "GPL-2" of dependency "rtl-sdr".

I had quick look at the license and it seems it uses code licensed under GPL-2+ LGPL-2.1+ GPL-3+.

At least that is what is mentionned in the ​copyright file of debian.

Do you think it is possible to change the license mentionned in the portfile of rtl-sdr accordingly ?

BTW, there are other elements about the licenses and welle.io in #59779.

[michaelld (Michael Dickens)]

Here's the license in the rtl-sdr source repo: ​http://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr/tree/COPYING

It's for GPLv2. Just that. One should be able to incorporate rtl-sdr's GPLv2 code into a GPLv3 project:

9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.

rtl-sdr's license in the files states

 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.

Hence, my read is that rtl-sdr can be incorporated into a GPLv3 licensed project.

THAT SAID, the CMakeLists.txt files show

# GNU Radio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
# any later version.

-THAT- said, because the main license as found in COPYING states GPLv2, that's what I'm sticking with.

[michaelld (Michael Dickens)]

In 15524f426cb62f9764d9a6b4de32ee75906566aa/macports-ports (master):

rtl-sdr: fix license to what it actually it: GPLv2+, not just GPLv2.

Noted in: #60020

[michaelld (Michael Dickens)]

I just changed it to GPL-2+ ... does that fix your issue?

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

All the source files say version 2 or any later version. (Except for tuner_fc2580.c, which worryingly says it came from somewhere else, citing a web page that no longer exists, but including no copyright or license information at all.) The CMakeLists.txt and other build system files aren't incorporated into the build products, and so aren't relevant for determining binary distributability.

[tenzap]

Replying to michaelld:

I just changed it to GPL-2+ ... does that fix your issue?

To test it I guess I need to trigger a rebuild of the welle.io package on the MacPort builders. I checked in the Wiki but couldn't find a way to do that apart from submitting a new updated welle.io Portfile . Do you know of another way ?

[tenzap]

Replying to michaelld:

I just changed it to GPL-2+ ... does that fix your issue?

Yes it does ! Binaries are now available in ​http://packages.macports.org/welle.io/ Thank you.

[michaelld (Michael Dickens)]

Excellent! You're welcome! Thanks for reporting back.