[Haskell-cafe] GPL answers from the SFLC (WAS: Re: ANN: hakyll-0.1)

[Malcolm Wallace]

> On 5 March 2010 09:53, Magnus Therning <magnus at therning.org> wrote:
>
>> Now I'm even more confused.  How is hosting on Hackage an issue in  
>> [1]?

The GPL specifically (and only) applies when code is "distributed" to  
others outside the originating authors' organisation.

Hackage is a means of distributing such code.  Because Hackage has  
received the code from the author, it therefore has the same  
obligations (under the GPL, or BSD, or whatever) as any other recipient.

To be clear, like any recipient, one treats the donor in good faith.   
That is, one believes the license granted by the author (or upstream  
distributor) is valid until notified otherwise.  It is the author's  
responsibility to check, not Hackage's.

Regards,
     Malcolm