Re: license opinion sought

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Ian Zimmerman <itz@speakeasy.org>

> I am itching to package PolyML, a relatively lightweight, standard
> conformant ML implementation with some unique features (such as a
> persistent store).  But IANAL, so I can't make sense of its license.
> It's not just that I don't know if it's DFSG; I simply don't know
> _what_ it allows/prohibits.

The tricky clauses seem to be

| 5. The Licensee grants to the Licensor in good faith a non-exclusive,
|     royalty-free licence to use any Improvements with the right to
|     grant sub-licences to any existing or future licensees of the
|     Software.

| 6. The Licensor shall be bound to grant sub-licenses of the
|     Improvements on being requested so to do by any existing or future
|     Licensee of the Software. The Improvements shall promptly be made
|     available by the Licensee to the Licensor and by the Licensor to
|     any sub-licensee. Such Improvements shall be made available to a
|     degree of detail sufficient for the purposes of the license
|     granted under clause 5 or as required by the Licensor.

the meaning of which is indeed hard to penetrate. But after three or
four readings it seems to mean that someone who modifies the code MUST
send the modifications back to the original author (who then promises
to further distribute them to everyone else). Which is non-DFSG-free.

-- 
Henning Makholm              "Det är alldeles för ansvarsfullt att skaffa en
                            flickvän. Det är ju som att skaffa en hundvalp."


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