Re: Draft new DFSG - r1.4
--On Mon, Nov 30, 1998 8:03 am -0600 john@dhh.gt.org wrote:
> Milan Zamazal writes:
>
>> This makes SWI Prolog non-free because of one its licensing clause:
>
>> 6. If you base research on SWI-Prolog and publish on this research,
>> you must include appropriate acknowledgements and references to
>> SWI-Prolog in your publication.
>
> IMHO that is a restriction on use and fails the present DFSG. It is also
> so vague as to be impossible to comply with.
Interesting.
To the extent that your research is a 'derived' work of SWI-Prolog, this
restriction is perfectly admissible.
Also, it is clearly routine academic behaviour to do so. A piece of
research is worthless unless it explains how to replicate the results, and
part of this explanation will necessarily be 'appropriate acknowledgements
and references'.
So, in some sense this is a 'non-restriction'.
However, it could be construed to fail the current DFSG. Maybe we should
exempt this (it doesn't impinge on the freeness of the software, as a piece
of software).
Jules
P.S. Yes, it should be on -legal. I'm maintaining the CC to -devel to give
all those on -devel who haven't noticed -legal's existence yet a chance to
subscribe. I suggest we drop the -devel CC on the next response.
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