Re: meaning license statement
* Gerber van der Graaf <gerber.vdgraaf@gmail.com> [120603 23:18]:
> I am building debian packages of FreeFOAM and come across the following
> license statement in
It is no license statement but a copyright statement. To distribute it
you need a license statement. (And to distribute in Debian a free enough
license statement).
> * All Rights Reserved.
That's just magic words from the past. Practically everywhere they have
no meaning, since the time when even the US as one of the last countries
introduced automatically granted copyright.
> * Restricted Rights Legend
> *
> * Use, duplication, or disclosure of this
> * software and its documentation by the
> * Government is subject to restrictions as
> * set forth in subdivision [(b)(3)(ii)] of
> * the Rights in Technical Data and Computer
> * Software clause at 52.227-7013.
I think that references some US government acquisition
guidelines. I've no idea which clause this numbers
are refering too, but I guess means something like
"Hey US government, I sold you a license to use this
stuff, not a license to sublicense to other people".
Anyway, reading this as plan English language, it says
"Use [...] by the Government is subject [...]".
It's "the" Government (with upper case G), so I'd say
it only means the US government.
So it has no meaning to anyone else and for the US
government it is about rules set by thatself, so this
should not not be a problem for Debian at all.
(But repeating myself: you still need a license for this
file. Nothing in there restricts you more than it is
restricted anyway AFAUI. But even for a file without
all this legaleese you need a license grant.)
> Can anybody tell me what this statement means? Is it legal to copy it
> and to include it in the package, or should it be removed?
What do you mean with "removed" exactly? The statement itself
is of course not to be removed from the file. For the file itself
you need a license grant, just like for any other file you want to
copy and distribute. Without that you cannot.
Bernhard R. Link
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