[TriLUG] I have some sticky licensing questions

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

I'm currently writing a standalone Python program that takes the output
of the eLyXer LyX to HTML converter, makes it suitable to make an ePub
ebook file, and produces the table of contents (toc.ncx).

LyX is licensed GPL2 or later. eLyXer is licensed GPL3 or later. I
dislike GPL3 (too copyleft and restrictive for my taste), and I would
never allow a license based on some future license version. What if
somehow Larry Ellison buys the FSF someday?

I'm pretty sure I can license my program any way I want and have it
operate on eLyXer produced HTML files. But one of the guys from the LyX
crew felt that in the long run, it might be better for me to
incorporate my code into LyX or eLyXer. And I dislike GPL3.

Here are some questions:

If I licensed it MIT, could they legally take it, modify it slightly,
re-license the derivative work GPL3 or later (eeeewwwww), and solve the
problem without *my* licensing it that way? That would certainly be one
way.

Could I dual-license it GPL2 and GPL3 or MIT and GPL3 or MIT and GPL2
and GPL3, and would that allow them to incorporate it into a program
that's GPL 3 or later?

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance