Re: how to donate free program for Debian?
On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:21:12 -0800, Kevin B McCarty
<kmccarty@Princeton.EDU> said:
> Cognaxon <info@cognaxon.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> we would like to donate our free small program called "WSQ viewer"
>> (for Linux) to be distributed with Debian CD/DVD. The short
>> description of the program is here
>> http://www.cognaxon.com/index.php?page=wsqview_forlinux> The
>> http://www.cognaxon.com/index.php?page=wsqview_forlinux> program is
>> http://www.cognaxon.com/index.php?page=wsqview_forlinux> only 0.5
>> http://www.cognaxon.com/index.php?page=wsqview_forlinux> Megabyte
>> http://www.cognaxon.com/index.php?page=wsqview_forlinux> in size.
>>
>> How can we donate our program for Debian?
> In addition to the question of possible license non-freeness raised
> by others, I have some impression that wavelets are a patent
> minefield. If this software was distributed by Debian, would we be
> subject to possible patent enforcement issues? As a volunteer Free
> Software project we have neither the money nor the desire to license
> patents.
This seems to fly in the face of the actual policy Debian has
with regards to patents. Additionally, your tone and constructs
("*we* have neither the desire...") imply that you are speaking on
behalf of the project -- which, as a non-developer, it is unlikely
that you can.
As far as I am aware, the position of the Debian project wrt
to patents has been to ignore the possibility, until and unless
challenged by the patent holder. There is certainly no problem in
releasing the program under a free license. While I can't speak for
the FTP masters, vague fears that something _might_ violate some
unidentified patent somewhere is not something that has been used to
keep packages out of Debian.
manoj
--
Ever wonder if taxation without representation might have been cheaper?
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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