Re: Bug#183672: PHP-Nuke: copyright report
On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Hugo Espuny wrote:
> 6) The infamous evil addendum is included in "INSTALL" file , not in
> "COPYING" (i don't now if this fact is relevant at all), as follows:
>
> "I M P O R T A N T N O T E
>
> IMPORTANT: I saw many sites that removes the copyright line in the footer
> of each page. YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO REMOVE NOR CHANGE/EDIT THAT NOTE. If I
> still see this problem happening I'll need to take extreme measures that
> can include: to change the PHP-Nuke license, to encrypt some parts of the
> code, stop distributing it for free and in an extreme case stop developing
> it. The decision is in your hands.
> If you do not agreed with this simple rule, delete all PHP-Nuke files
> rigth now and move away from it. Thanks."
...
[and in some source files]
> // YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MODIFY ANYTHING ELSE THAN THE ABOVE REQUIRED
> INFORMATION.
> // AND YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DELETE THIS FILE NOR TO CHANGE ANYTHING
> FROM THIS FILE IF
> // YOU'RE NOT THIS MODULE'S AUTHOR."
Thank you for this work, Hugo. Now I'm not sure what to think, except
that the license for the work is currently unclear.
The "You are not allowed" language is indicative to me that it is intended
to be a license condition. However, since he lists change of license as
one of his proposed threats, that's a conflicting indication that he knows
it's not a requirement.
Honestly, unless/until we can get a clarification (e-mail is fine, and it
should be included in the distribution) from Mr. Burzi, I'd say this is
not ok to distribute at all, even in non-free.
If the clarification is that that his intent is to make a strong
but not legally-binding request (and that his threat to change the
license is for future versions, not retroactive to the current version),
I'd say PHPNuke is free (and I'd request that you remove the confusing
language from the source files, replacing it with a pointer to the
clarification).
If the clarification is that it IS a license requirement, or that he
intends to retroactively change the license, it's not distributable at
all.
I don't see how this can go into non-free. It's free or it's not
distributable at all. Not distributable is my opinion given no
information but what Hugo has provided.
--
Mark Rafn dagon@dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/>
Reply to: