[IAEP] 3 questions about Sugar Desktop Copyleft

[Dave Crossland]

Hi

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/FAQ#What_are_the_principles_that_guide_Sugar_Labs.3F
says

What are the principles that guide Sugar Labs?

Sugar Labs subscribes to principle that learning thrives within a culture
of freedom of expression, hence it has a natural affinity with the free
software movement (Please see Principles page in this wiki
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs#Principles for more details). The
core Sugar platform has been developed under a GNU General Public License
(GPL); individual activities may be under different licenses.


That last sentence seems really weird to me, because as I understand the
GPL, and I Am Not A Lawyer, then if Sugar is GPL, all Activities must be
under GPL compatible libre software licenses.

Eg
https://github.com/walterbender/turtleart/blob/master/TurtleArtActivity.py#L35
is linking to sugar.activity, and so if
https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/blob/master/src/sugar3/activity/activity.py
was GPL, it would form a combined/derivative work.

but in fact, while most of Sugar is GPLv2-or-later -

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/tree/master/docs has copies of GPLv2 and
LGPLv2.

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/blob/master/COPYING is a copy of the
GPLv2

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-datastore/blob/master/COPYING is a copy
of the GPLv2 (oddly without the preamble)

https://github.com/sugarlabs/browse-activity/blob/master/COPYING is a copy
of the GPLv2

These say GPLv2 or later in the top comment of the source code files, but
the list of authors is not maintained:

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/blob/master/src/jarabe/main.py#L5-L7

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-datastore/blob/master/src/carquinyol/datastore.py#L5-L7

https://github.com/sugarlabs/browse-activity/blob/master/browser.py#L7-L8


- I found that sugar-base and sugar-toolkit-gtk3 (and perhaps other 'core'
parts) are LGPLv2.1-or-later:

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-base/blob/master/COPYING is a copy of
the LGPLv2.1

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/blob/master/COPYING
is a copy of the LGPLv2.1


https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-base/blob/master/src/sugar/__init__.py#L5-L7
says LGPLv2.1-or-later

https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/blob/master/src/sugar3/env.py#L6-L7
says
LGPLv2.1-or-later


So, I am curious :)

Are there any proprietary Sugar activities?

Have any parts of Sugar become GPLv3-or-later?

The activities on ASLO have a variety of licenses, and it seems somewhat
unmanaged. At random I picked
http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4548 and it has a copy of
the LGPLv3, but the code headers says GPLv2-or-later.

Is it ASLO policy to only host works licensed under GPLv2-or-later
compatible licenses, or is another criteria used?

-- 
Cheers
Dave
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