Francesco Poli <invernomuto@paranoici.org> writes: > On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:14:41 +0300 Andrius Merkys wrote: >> >> [Please keep me in CC, I am not subscribed] >> >> I encountered a package EvoEF2 [1] which is licensed under Expat and has >> the following in its README.md: >> >> "EvoEF2 is free to academic users." >> >> To me such limitation seems to contradict the Expat license, but I >> wonder what is the legal opinion about such combination. I know that I >> can always ask the upstream for clarification which I did earlier when >> the restriction was: 1. EvoEF2 is licensed Expat 2. Expat makes EvoEF2 free for all users 3. "EvoEF2 is free to academic users." 4. I am a[n] [academic] user 5. EvoEF2 is free for me. #3 is redundant because it is a subset of #2. vs 1. EvoEF2 is licensed Expat 2. Expat makes EvoEF2 free for all users 3. "EvoEF2 is free to academic users." 4. I am a [commercial or nonacademic] user 5. EvoEF2 is free for me. At #2, all users, includes nonacademic, commercial, etc. #3 becomes an editorial: a statement of the anticipated audience and nothing more. > Well, take into account that I am not a lawyer. I'm also not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. > Anyway, to me, the sentence "EvoEF2 is free to academic users." looks > a little misleading. Agreed. > One could nitpick that the sentence is not false: it's true that EvoEF2 > is free to academic users, since it's released under the Expat license, > and therefore it's free to everyone, including academic users. > > However, the sentence may make the reader think that EvoEF2 is free > _only_ to academic users, although it does not say so. I agree that this is the important part! It seems legally nonbinding to me, and not nice to the reader. Also, I think it would be a stretch to successfully argue that the antecedent of a redundant statement in the README somehow acts as an addendum to the LICENSE, such that the license is no longer Expat. Maybe there are some parts of the world were this is how an addendum works, but I think the additional statements usually need to be explicitly defined as such. ie: "This is an addendum to the LICENSE...I limit the LICENSE in the following way...". > I would suggest to once again get in touch with upstream and persuade > them to drop that sentence, or perhaps to replace it with something > like "EvoEF2 is free to all users." Agreed! On the other hand, if the author intends to forbid commercial use, then the license should say so. While not great for the community, that may also be what the author wishes for... Cheers, Nicholas
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