[GnomeMeeting-list] License issues -- Please help

["Dov" <dov kagoor com>]

Hi everybody,

My name is Dov, and I'm from Israel.
I'm a Linux freak for many years now, and I've been using gnome/gnomemeeting
for a few years now.
I'm working for a company called Kagoor networks Ltd which develops VoIP
border control equipment.

I have a problem that I hope someone of you will be able to help me with it.
The story is pretty long, so I'll try to be brief.

I'm trying to add h.323 support into the Ethereal project cvs tree
<http://ethereal.com> for some time now.

There is a project called : "H.323 plug-in for Ethereal"
<http://www.voice2sniff.org/> which only exists because of license problems
between GPL and MPL.

The problem is that the "H.323 plug-in for Ethereal" project is based on the
openh323 project <http://www.openh323.org>
which is MPL, now the guys from the ethereal project don't want MPL code
because they use GPL code.

I recently noticed, after talking to RMS(Richard Stallman) during his visit
to Israel that I should check a bit deeper into the subject. (Long story, I
told him that gnomemeeting supports h323 and he asked me how come, because
It's GPL etc...)

Then I noticed that in the gnomemeeting FAQ it says :

GnomeMeeting is licensed under the GPL license and as a special exception,
you have permission to link or otherwise combine this program with the
programs OpenH323 and Pwlib, and distribute the combination, without
applying the requirements of the GNU GPL to the OpenH323 program, as long as
you do follow the requirements of the GNU GPL for all the rest of the
software thus combined.

Here are my questions :

1. How come openh323 is MPL and you use it and than gnomemeeting is GPL ???
2. Who decided to do so ???
3. Can the combination be done to the ethereal project ???

Damien, I'll be glad if you will answer too, because you probably made it
possible !!!

Thanks in advance,
Sorry for the length,
Dov.