On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:03:47PM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: > Dear Branden: > > On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > F. This software is for use only in hardware or software products > > > that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No > > > license or right to this Software is granted for products that do not > > > comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. The JPEG-2000 Part 1 standard can be > > > purchased from the ISO. > > If you are going to quote from the JasPer software license, please > quote from the current version of the license (and not an obsolete > version). In the last year, the license has been revised so that the > above clause only applies to the JPEG-2000 codec in JasPer. In > particular, the license now reads: > > F. The JPEG-2000 codec implementation included in the JasPer software > is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant > with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to > this codec implementation is granted for products that do not comply > with ISO/IEC 15444-1. Thanks for the clarification. > This is one of the reasons why I object when people claim that JasPer > is not free software. Only the JPEG-2000 codec module has a usage > restriction, not the JasPer library proper. I could have released the > JasPer codec modules separately from the JasPer library, but I simply > do not have the manpower to do so. (This would require more effort > for multiple software distributions.) The JasPer software may be > used FREELY (IN YOUR STRICT SENSE OF THE WORD "FREE") without the > JPEG-2000 support. We would, as you noted, have to omit the JPEG-2000 codec from the packaged version. > > I believe the above will both signal members of the Free Software and > > Open Source communities that they will need to look elsewhere for > > software satisfying their licensing requirements, and place the > > responsibility for the failure to license the reference implementation > > for general-purpose use where it belongs. > > Although I wish that Debian could also benefit from the use of JasPer, > I would like to note that many software projects (many of which are > open source) have not found the compliance clause to be problematic. Patent licensing as it intersects with Free Software is not terrain that has been as well explored as copyright licensing. > This is why I would like to understand better what makes Debian > different from other projects. It's worth noting that the Debian Free Software Guidelines were used as the basis of the "Open Source Definition", promulgated by the Open Source Initiative. One thing that makes Debian different from other major Linux distributions is that we are not a commercial entity. > Is this simply a religious debate (about what constitutes "free")? I suspect the answer to this question depends on what your definition of "religious" is. > Perhaps this is not the case, but sometimes, if I may be frank, it > feels this way. It may be that we have failed to articulate our principles with sufficient clarity. If even *having* principles other than "the freedom to not have to pay any money for it is all the freedom I need" is what you would term "religious", though, it is possible that you would consider the central principles of the Debian Project to be religious in nature. -- G. Branden Robinson | Sometimes, getting your patch in is Debian GNU/Linux | just a matter of waiting for branden@debian.org | somebody else to reimplement it. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Jonathan Corbet
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