Subject: Re: zlib is not GNU

From: Wei Dai <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 22:18:30 -0800

On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 05:45:35PM -0800, Wei Dai wrote:
> zlib is refered to as "GNU ZLIB (LZ77) compression" in the transport
> draft, but I don't think zlib (either the library for the compression
> format) has anything to do with GNU (either the organization or the
> license). I suggest the word "GNU" be taken out.

I take that back. Although the zlib home page doesn't mention GNU, zlib is
listed at the gnu.org site as a GNU software package.

---

From: Tatu Ylonen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 10:19:15 +0200 (EET)

> listed at the gnu.org site as a GNU software package.

Looking at the source, it does not mention GNU in any way (at least not
in 1.1.3, which is the version I am using). I think we
should respect what the authors themselves chose to do, and not use the
word GNU there.

Attached is the copyright section from the README file:

zlib 1.1.3 is a general purpose data compression library.  All the code
...

Copyright notice:

 (C) 1995-1998 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler

  This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
  warranty.  In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
  arising from the use of this software.

  Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
  including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
  freely, subject to the following restrictions:

  1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
     claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
     in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
     appreciated but is not required.
  2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not
be
     misrepresented as being the original software.
  3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source
distribution.

  Jean-loup Gailly        Mark Adler
  [email-masked]          [email-masked]

If you use the zlib library in a product, we would appreciate *not*
receiving lengthy legal documents to sign. The sources are provided
for free but without warranty of any kind.  The library has been
entirely written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler; it does not
include third-party code.

If you redistribute modified sources, we would appreciate that you include
in the file ChangeLog history information documenting your changes.

---

From: Jason R Thorpe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 09:33:47 -0800

> listed at the gnu.org site as a GNU software package.

If you're worried about zlib's license, it is not GPL'd.  Jean-loup Gailly
and Mark Adler have been releasing zlib under a non-GPL license for quite
some time.  Seems to indicate that they're not interested in being associated
with the GNU Project.

-- 
        -- Jason R. Thorpe <[email-masked]>

---

From: [email-masked] (Niels M�ller)
Date: 06 Feb 2001 11:14:45 +0100

Jason R Thorpe <[email-masked]> writes:

> some time.  

Using the GPL and "being a part of the GNU project" are quite
different things. You can do one without doing the other (although for
a program or library to be a part of the GNU project, it ought to at
least use a "GPL compatible" license, which zlib indeed does).

And I' not worried about the license (it's both free and GPL
compatible, which is good enough for me); we're not discussing the
zlib license, we're discussing the proper way to refer to zlib.

> Seems to indicate that they're not interested in being associated
> with the GNU Project.

Please note that Mark Adler and Jean-Loup Gailly also wrote gzip,
which is definitely a GNU program.

/Niels