Re: glibc2.1 confusion ( was: slink is gone, goals for potato? )

[ron@microtronics.com.au (Ron)]

> ... was that FSF had problems with the DB2 part (think Sleepycat) of
> glibc 2.1, because of its BSD licensing.

If this is actually true then perhaps discussion with the Sleepycat folks
is in order..  As I understand the DB2 situation, they've taken something
of an each way bet with the licence with the result that BSD folk feel
it's incompatible with BSD also, mainly due to their insistance that any
code using it must be freely distributed or a separate commercial licence
applied for.

About it, Sleepycat Software Inc. says:

        Complete source code for Berkeley DB is provided as part of
        the package, and DB may be freely redistributed and used
        under most non-commercial conditions.  This license is
        different from the one used for the DB 1.85 release.  The
        major difference is that the license for DB 2.0 requires that,
        if the DB software is to be redistributed, the software using
        DB 2.0 must also be freely redistributed.

        Therefore you can't redistribute the db2 libraries as part of a
        program for which the source is not freely redistributable, using
        the present license.

        The reason is that we want it to be clear that you can freely use
        DB internally without having to redistribute your sources.  The
        only folks we ask to commercially license DB are people that are
        redistributing DB and not redistributing their source.

Whether this is significant to the glibc2.1 issue, I'm not in a position
to say..  It's a grey area to be watched, but probably not a flagrant
breach of DFSG as far as we are concerned.

best,
Ron.