[Savannah-help-public] Fwd: question on GPL

[Brett Smith]

Hello,

We recently received the mail below at <address@hidden>.  It more
concerns GNU policy than actual license questions, though, so I
thought it would be best to pass it on to you.

Do you think you might be able to provide a reply?  If not, let me
know, and I'll see who else I should try to ask.

Thanks,

==============================================================================
Subject: question on GPL
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:33:58 +0000
To: address@hidden
From: Gaius Mulley <address@hidden>


Hi,

I'm trying to get the project I'm lead developer for accepted into
Savannah as an official GNU project. I'm working on GNU Modula-2 - a
front end for GCC.

GNU Modula-2 is written in Modula-2 and C. Currently within GNU
Modula-2 I'm using a modified copy of `p2c' which performs the
bootstrapping of the Modula-2 sources into C.

Now p2c is GPL'd but the p2c project is a not official GNU project as
defined by Savannah (but it is held on Savannah as an unofficial piece
of GNU software, GPL v2). So my question is how should I proceed in
order to get GNU Modula-2 an official GNU Project?

(i) create diffs from the modifications I've made to p2c
and have some script recreate the p2c sources currently present in
GNU Modula-2 by downloading a p2c-1.20 tar ball and applying
the set of diffs. Or..

(ii) am I allowed to include the p2c sources as part of GNU
Modula-2 and still obtain official GNU software status?
Or would the fact that p2c is not official GNU software
`taint' GNU Modula-2? Basically I not quite sure how the GPL
relates to official and non official GNU software. Ie because
p2c is GPL'd can I #include it into GNU Modula-2..

Maybe I've missed a FAQ on this somewhere,

best wishes,
Gaius