Re: Questions about liblouis
Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> wrote:
> johnhalton@gmail.com wrote:
> >On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 02:29:05PM -0800, Eitan Isaacson wrote:
> >> 3. The translation tables that are read at run-time are considered
> >> part of this code and are under the terms of the GPL. Any changes to
> >> these tables and any additional tables that are created for use by
> >> this code must be made publicly available.
> >This fails the "desert island test", and so the package is non-free.
> The "desert island test" is just something which was invented a few
> years ago by some debian-legal@ posters and is not part of the DFSG.
It seems it's first posted as a test of whether something meets DFSG 1-3
by Thomas Bushnell, BSG on 2002-01-01T22:39Z. It's interesting to see
the complete lack of controversy then, but that's hardly conclusive.
According to some people, debian-legal was controlled by Evil in 2002
(before my time on any debian lists AFAICR, so I don't know).
Ultimately, is "hacking on a desert island" (or other inaccessible place)
a field of endeavour we mustn't discriminate against? I believe so.
> Anyway, this sentence just says that these tables are licensed under the
> terms of the GPL, which makes them obviously free.
Please read the licence properly. There are two sentences there. The
second one says "publicly available" which is at best an unclear
lawyerbomb and at worst GPL-incompatible. Also, it covers "any
additional tables" which may contaminate other software (DFSG 9).
Hope that helps,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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