Deimos X11 bindings license question

[Vadim Lopatin via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 3 September 2017 at 16:51:53 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Sunday, 3 September 2017 at 16:10:11 UTC, Gary Willoughby 
> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A few years ago I forked the Deimos X11 bindings[1] repo to 
>> add dub support. Since then my repo[2] has received bug fixes 
>> and as such it's being used in many projects. (Also, in the 
>> following years dub support was added to the Deimos repo too.) 
>> I had a question from a developer as to the license of the 
>> code in my repo. I used the LGPL because the original used it.
>>
>> My question, is there a legal way to change the current 
>> license to Boost or MIT or something like? Because this 
>> particular developer wanted to use it in a project where LGPL 
>> was incompatible.
>>
>> [1]: https://github.com/D-Programming-Deimos/libX11
>> [2]: https://github.com/nomad-software/x11
>
> When I first created the DerelictSDL bindings, the SDL library 
> was LGPL (though it's since switched to MIT). I contacted Sam 
> Lantinga (the creator of SDL) to get his take on it. He told me 
> that his understanding was that an API binding is not a 
> derivative work and therefore can have a separate license. I 
> got the same answer from others. None of these folks were, or 
> are, lawyers, but they all work for companies that have to be 
> aware of such issues. So I felt as safe as I could be sans 
> legal advice in licensing all of the Derelict packages under 
> Boost.
>
> That said, I don't know if the Oracle v. Google case and its 
> precedent that APIs are copyrightable impact this common 
> understanding. After all, it was commonly understood prior to 
> that case that that copyright applies to implementations, not 
> interfaces. Now that the court has established the opposite, 
> does the same hold true for licensing? I don't know of any 
> legal cases that have decided either way.

It looks like we need to get permission from 17 developers - all 
x11 binding contributors.

Contributors to DUB package nomad-software/x11

nomad-software
weltensturm
Geod24
MartinNowak
BBasile
rikkimax

Additionally, contributors to Deimos/libX11

growlercab
bioinfornatics
skilion
CyberShadow
Faianca
Flamaros
PhilipWitte
edmccard
arukuka
IanWizard
WalterBright