Maelstrom copyright (again)
I have been thinking some more about the Maelstrom license. The
copyright file in the package contains the following paragraph:
The author of the port of Maelstrom to Linux, Sam Lantinga
<slouken@cs.ucdavis.edu>, has approved the inclusion of Maelstrom in Debian
distributions, including commercially distributed versions, as long as
Maelstrom is _not_ sold independently and remains freely available.
This is no longer enough to put a package in the main distribution
(see section 8 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines), but it is
obviously not the author's intent to make Maelstrom unfree. Perhaps
if I contacted the author, I could arrange a less restrictive license.
Should I try this?
Can someone give me suggestions or guidelines on how to approach an
author about such matters?
(The debian-policy document says to ask here for advice before
contacting the authors, so I presume you have some to give :-)
If I were to make up something on my own, I would send a mail
explaining that Debian policy has changed, and include the DFSG, and
ask if it might be possible to arrange a license that fits those
guidelines. And regretfully add that otherwise the package will have
to go into non-free.
The policy manual calls this "a politically difficult thing to do",
which is not one of my strong points :)
Oh, for reference, here's the actual copyright statement:
This software, the Linux port of Maelstrom, may be freely copied
and used. It may not be resold or used in a commercial product
without the consent of Andrew Welch, the author of the original
Macintosh version of Maelstrom, and the consent of Sam Lantinga,
author of the port of Maelstrom to Linux.
Please don't use the code in this project directly in a game.
Feel free to use the game programming concepts, however Macintosh
Maelstrom remains a shareware game by Ambrosia Software.
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