On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 11:53:10AM -0500, Jeffry Smith wrote:
> jerome.marant said:
> >
> > When looking at the opensource.org page, I discovered that the Vovida
> > Licence (http://www.vovida.org/licence.html) is considered as
> > OSD compliant.
> >
> > However, the fourth clause tells that
> > "4. Products derived from this software may not be called "VOCAL", nor
> > may "VOCAL" appear in their name, without prior written
> > permission."
> >
> > Is this compatible with the third clause of the DFSG ? It looks like a
> > restriction on the distribution.
> >
>
> Not really. You can still redistribute, you just can't use VOCAL name. Think of it as a "branding" thing - to get the certification as the "official" one, you need permission.
>
> Since Linux owns the "Linux" trademark, he could rightly prevent anyone from calling their distro "Linux", but he couldn't stop them from distributing it under another name.
This license, it should be noted, is simply the Apache license with
the names changed.
It should also be noted that it contains the same spurious GPL
incompatibility that the Apache license has. The clause 4 mentioned
makes this license GPL incompatible. However, it is almost guaranteed
that this name could be trademarked, which would achieve *exactly* the
same effect (and could be changed more easily) without the
incompatibilty. Supposedly, Brian Behlendorf and RMS are working to
resolve this incompatibilty for the Apache license. Someone may want
to urge Vovida to look into this as well.
sam th
sam@uchicago.edu
http://www.abisource.com/~sam/
GnuPG Key:
http://www.abisource.com/~sam/key
Attachment:
pgpccUCeUQAXB.pgp
Description: PGP signature