Re: Keeping non-free separate
Buddha Buck:
> Pine requires explicit permission for redistribution by for-profit
> organisations, which means that Bruce can put it on his CD-ROMs,
> Software in the Public Interest (Debian) can put it on their CD-ROMs,
> but Yggdrisil or SSC (Linux Journal) can't. That's too unfree to not
> be in non-free.
We probably should ask the Pine developers on this one. It could well
be free - quoted from /usr/doc/copyright/pine:
[...] Re-distribution
by for-profit organizations requires permission from the University of
Washington.
The above permissions are hereby granted, provided that the Pine and Pico
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
copyright and trademark notices appear in all copies and that both the
above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation, and that the name of the University of Washington not be
used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the
software without specific, prior written permission. [...]
So as long as the notices appear in all copies (they do - all copies
of the package contain /usr/doc/copyright/pine), and we don't use
the name of the University of Washington in advertising (similar
restrictions exist in BSD copyrights, probably no problem for us),
it should be OK for Debian to distribute Pine(tm). Or am I missing
something?
> XV is shareware, and can't be bundled with "any product". While XV is
> fairly liberal with its copying policy, it is non-free. I believe that
> Bruce could bundle it on his CD, but I could be wrong. XV also
> contains code for LZW compression (to support GIF), and that is
> potentially effected by patent restrictions.
I think we should ask the author for permission to distribute xv.
It's probably not hard to get one as both Red Hat and Slackware can
distribute xv. It's shareware, but free for personal use, and it
comes with source. As for LZW, I think only compression is patented
(decompression is not), so it should be OK to use xv to view GIF
images, even if you are in the US...
> Zip isn't allowed for commercial distribution (but bundling with
> commercial software is OK, with restrictions), and it is unclear if
> modification and subsequent redistribution is allowed. As long as due
> care was taken, it could be shipped on CD-ROM.
A few months ago I asked the authors of zip/unzip about this, and
received a reply that they have no problems with us distributing
their software as part of the Debian system. Or do we need this in
writing? :-)
(Again, zip and unzip are part of Red Hat and Slackware.)
Thanks,
Marek
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