Re: Name restriction and forced acknowledgement OK?
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 12:23:45PM +0100, Olе Streicher wrote:
> Mark Weyer <mark@weyer-zuhause.de> writes:
> > On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:19:04AM +0100, Ole Streicher wrote:
> >> c. The name(s) of all routine(s) in your derived work shall not
> >> include the prefix "iau".
As you mentioned macros versus functions in your other mail, I noticed that
in C terminology there are no routines at all. So I would tend to read
"routine" as a concept which comprised both C functions and certain C macros.
Anyway, a modification which should be allowed is to transform the library
from C to a language in whose terminology everything is a routine.
> > Non-free: It effectively forbids using a modified library as a drop-in
> > replacement for the original library.
>
> This is true. What they effectively want is that nobody refers f.e. to a
> function iauEpj2jd() that is not approved by the International
> Astronomical Union, so that they reach a kind of "uniformness"
> here. However, they are effective with that only for the licensees of
> the library; one could easily build a completely independent library
> with the same name.
>
> > It fails DFSG 3.
>
> Why? It just requires that they get a different name.
However small the restriction is, some modifications are prohibited.
> If it is really non-free: would a library, where I (as the packager)
> would change all prefixes from iau to IAU (as an example) be free in the
> dfsg sense? This change would allow anyone to adopt the source code and
> to write a drop-in replacement.
Again, it would restrict certain modifications (rechanging the names and
improving some implementations).
Let me emphasize the G in DFSG. They are neither a legal text nor a definition,
so we should not argue too closely to their letter. But your capitalization
argument above could be used to try to persuade upstream to relicense (because
their current license does not achieve what they want anyway).
> * 5. You shall not cause the SOFA software to be brought into
> * disrepute, either by misuse, or use for inappropriate tasks, or
> * by inappropriate modification.
I think this one fails DFSG 6 (discrimination against field of endeavour).
Best regards,
Mark Weyer
Reply to: