Can I use GPLv2 code of mercurial for implementing bzr's code?

[INADA Naoki]

Thank you, John.

I've finally implement by myself because hg's mbtextwrapper is not
complete.
My version of textwrapper is now on bzrlib.utextwrap in
lp:~songofacandy/bzr/i18n.

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:02 AM, John Arbash Meinel
<john at arbash-meinel.com> wrote:
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> On 5/3/2011 5:49 PM, INADA Naoki wrote:
>> I'm implementing i18n code on lp:~songofacandy/bzr/from-hg.
>> I reused mercurial's per-paragraph i18n code.
>> And I want to reuse mercurial's MBTextWrapper_ too.
>>
>> _MBTextWrapper:
>> https://bitbucket.org/mirror/mercurial/src/d8ba6fb2ce15/mercurial/util.py#cl-1128
>>
>> Mercurial and Bazaar are licensed under GPLv2. So I think I can reuse
>> mercurial's code for bzr. Is it collect? Does the Bazaar's single copyright
>> holder policy blocks other GPL code?
>>
>
> Legally, I believe it is fine for us to include a copy of Mercurial's
> code, since both are GPLv2.
>
> For code that we include from others (but don't hold the copyright) our
> policy has been to put it under bzrlib.util.*
>
> So if you are taking Mercurial's code, I would put a copy in
> bzrlib.util.XXX and then create a bzrlib.XXX file that hopefully can
> just inherit from the Mercurial implementation for any adaptation that
> we need.
>
> I'm sure it is possible to just edit it directly, but this leaves things
> in a clear state. Especially since it makes it easier (in the future) to
> do clean code drops if we want to upgrade to a newer version. (it
> becomes *very* clear what was the original code, and what our additions
> are to it.)
>
> That said, the code might not have been written to be easily extendable.
> If so, do what works.
>
> I think it would be good to have it clearly marked as not owned by us. I
> believe the (c) Canonical stuff means that if we need to, we may rewrite
> critical code to make sure to be the copyright holder. I don't think the
> gettext stuff is that critical, but I'm not positive.
>
> John
> =:->
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-- 
INADA Naoki  <songofacandy at gmail.com>