Can i use the Bouncer API a Programm wich is not GPL?
We are building a newsletter application for the django framework. For bounce detection we want to use the Mailman bouncerAPI because reimplementing would be a bad idea. Now my question is: can i release my application under a less restrictive license like the bsd license? I don't distribute Mailman i only list it as a requirement in setup.py
According to the gpl-faq this is a borderline case because i only invoke a function and wait for the response. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins
Is it possible to use Mailman like this? Is this the intended use of the BouncerAPI?
Marc
On Nov 05, 2010, at 04:01 PM, Marc Egli wrote:
We are building a newsletter application for the django framework. For bounce detection we want to use the Mailman bouncerAPI because reimplementing would be a bad idea. Now my question is: can i release my application under a less restrictive license like the bsd license? I don't distribute Mailman i only list it as a requirement in setup.py
According to the gpl-faq this is a borderline case because i only invoke a function and wait for the response. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins
Is it possible to use Mailman like this? Is this the intended use of the BouncerAPI?
I'm not sure I fully understand - you want to use the bounce detection code that lives in Mailman 2's Bouncers package? Do you want to be able to pass a message object in, let all the heuristics run, and then get a list of matching addresses out of it?
That's a very interesting use case, and it would be useful to have that available as a separate package (perhaps something to do for MM3), but it's not how the Mailman2 code is intended to be used. You probably can use it that way if you set up your PYTHONPATH correctly, but it's definitely untested and unsupported.
As to whether it's legal or not, IANAL and won't make any official claims about that. Since the FSF owns the copyright, you'll need to ask them:
http://www.fsf.org/about/contact/emailMy gut feeling is that it would not be legal.
-Barry
Marc Egli writes:
Now my question is: can i release my application under a less restrictive license like the bsd license?
Probably not.
According to the gpl-faq this is a borderline case because i only invoke a function and wait for the response. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins
The plugin really needs to be designed as a separate program with a single entry point and enumerated options (at most, with simple data types like strings and integers as arguments) to qualify as borderline here. However, the Bouncer API requires two complex data structures (a mailing list object and a message object) to be passed in. That pretty clearly is covered in the second paragraph of that FAQ, not the third.
Sorry. Like many in the Mailman community, I lean to the permissive side of the free software movement. I'd like to say "sure, you can do that." But you'd be at risk of being sued (by the FSF, no less) if you did. IANAL etc etc, and you might want to get a more authoritative opinion from the FSF itself.
Am 05.11.2010 um 17:55 schrieb Stephen J. Turnbull:
The plugin really needs to be designed as a separate program with a single entry point and enumerated options (at most, with simple data types like strings and integers as arguments) to qualify as borderline here. However, the Bouncer API requires two complex data structures (a mailing list object and a message object) to be passed in. That pretty clearly is covered in the second paragraph of that FAQ, not the third.
Sorry. Like many in the Mailman community, I lean to the permissive side of the free software movement. I'd like to say "sure, you can do that." But you'd be at risk of being sued (by the FSF, no less) if you did. IANAL etc etc, and you might want to get a more authoritative opinion from the FSF itself.
Ok but i can add a script to Mailman which accepts a path to a mail file, then reads that file and gives a csv list back. In my application i can exec this script. The script is under GPL and could bee added to Mailman if anyone else finds it useful. Am i right?
Marc
On Nov 05, 2010, at 06:36 PM, Marc Egli wrote:
Ok but i can add a script to Mailman which accepts a path to a mail file, then reads that file and gives a csv list back. In my application i can exec this script. The script is under GPL and could bee added to Mailman if anyone else finds it useful. Am i right?
Seems like a reasonable and fairly easy technical solution. You should still contact the FSF about the legality of it.
-Barry
Marc Egli writes:
Ok but i can add a script to Mailman which accepts a path to a mail file, then reads that file and gives a csv list back.
Yes, I would think so. The FSF likes to bluster that programs running in separate processes that interact with each other via standard interprocess channels (eg, stdio) could be considered a single work under copyright law, but I don't see how. The calling program never contains a physical copy of the GPLed code (or a derivative such as a compiled and partially linked DLL).
In the case of the GPLed script you're talking about, you don't use the Mailman code code it's based on in your application, you use its output. The GPL explicitly disclaims any restrictions on the output. Furthermore, it seems to me that your script would be independently useful to folks like Mark Shapiro who support users whose bounce processing seems wonky; it's clearly a separate work, not part of your application.
Since your earlier proposal is functionally equivalent to this, it would be nice if the GPL could somehow allow you to avoid the fork tax. But I don't think it can; copyright ends as soon as you allow someone to make a copy, you can no longer control the use of the copy. So this would probably be a huge loophole for abuse of GPLed plugins.
Again, IANAL, so you could ask the FSF to be absolutely sure. RMS and his lawyers are quite scrupulously honest about this; they will happily tell you that your use is permissible if it is (and equally happily go on to tell you that you really ought to be using GPL for your own work<wink>).
participants (3)
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Barry Warsaw -
Marc Egli -
Stephen J. Turnbull