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Re: Maelstrom copyright (again)



On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, Richard Braakman wrote:

> 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?

Yes. I think you ask them to use an existing free license (GPL, Aristic,
BSD, etc.) instead of making their own ones.

> 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 :-)

I don't know :-) but you should definitely be friendly. Perhaps it's good
to show them the Social Contract and the DFSG.


Thanks,

Chris

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