[Caml-list] Licenses - Confusion

[oliver <oliver@first.in-berlin.de>]

Hello,

I did publish one of my tools as GPLv3.
It is written in OCaml.

Now I saw at another project, that there is the need
for an "OCaml exception" regarding linking.

If thats true I may have missed a crucial points
when thinking about the license for tools written in OCaml.

I'm not a lwayer, and all that licenses stuff is rather+
annoying and confusing to me.
That OCaml code needs special treatment here, even
OCaml is shipped even with Debian, who surely would not accept
GPL-violating stuff, is annoying.

So, some questions came up now:

  - Which licenses can be used together with OCaml
    without changes?

  - Which licenses can be used together with added exceptions,
    and which exceptions are that?

  - In case of needed exceptions, where to find "ready-to-use"-versions
    of these licenses?

  - How to handle a project that already was published under a license
    that does not match 1:1 with OCaml licenses?
    It's not possible to delete any copy someone did of it already.
    Also it's not possible to sed all those people a message, to inform them
    that the license must be modified.
    Also I'm not sure how this could work, because the license came with the
    software at one time, and the correction comes later.


Regarding the third point: it would be a good idea to provide
"ready to use" licenses, which include the exceptions, instead
of lawyer-compatible (but not necessarily programmer-compatible)
explanations with many if-then-else's.


Ciao,
   Oliver