Re: trn license

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>

> > [ I contacted Stan Barber, Wayne Davison and Larry Wall to ask for
> > clarification of this.  Stan Barber replied:
> >     This intent of the copyright is not to INCREASE the cost of a
> >     CD-ROM distribution just because *rn was added. Put another way, if
> >     you had a CD-ROM at $100 and added *rn and changed the cost to $110
> >     just because you added *rn, that would violate the intent of the
> >     copyright.
> >   and Wayne Davison agreed.  -- Ian Jackson, former trn maintainer ]

> -- The "clarification" seems to contradict the sentence it clarifies;

Yes, but even if we take the clarification at face value, I doubt it
should be considered free. It essentially says "you must not distribute
this software if it is what pushes your distribution from needing n to
n+1 disks/floppies/tapes/carrier pigeons". It also seems to forbid an
ISP from mirroring a distribution with the program in it, if said ISP
charges its customers per byte transferred.

-- 
Henning Makholm                              "Lucy giver mig en smule af sin
                                 vandration. Hun siger, piger ikke bliver så
                          tørstige som drenge. Jeg har tit selv tænkt dette,
                  men det burde være noget søfolk blev bedre orienteret om."