"MJ Ray" <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote in message [🔎] 1152102443.090537.1506.nullmailer@klnet.towers.org.uk">news:[🔎] 1152102443.090537.1506.nullmailer@klnet.towers.org.uk...
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@Princeton.EDU>I would be interested to hear your opinions on the Geant4 Software License, version 1.0 [1]. [...] [1] http://geant4.web.cern.ch/geant4/license/LICENSE.htmlI think it is clearly GPL-incompatible (as you noted) for reasons similar to the old BSD licence and it might not follow the DFSG because of clauses 4 (automatic donation to upstream), clause 8 (no right to dispute unauthorised inclusion of your code) and maybe 5 (discrimination against fields of use) below.
How exactly does automatic upstream licence violate the DFSG? I think I see your point with number 8, but the idea of that clausefits the spirit of Software freeness. the idea is to prevent a big company from suing the developers without any good reason in an attempt to extort money from the developers. That sort of clause does discorage that. It is also a purely defensive clause.
Can you suggest a better wording? I don't think 5 is really a DFSG freeness problem, as attempting to patent a derivitive work is questionable. With all likelyhood such a patent would be invalidated in a court battle, so the clause only serves to prevent the whole thing from happening. I see no feilds of endevor which require software patents.