Bug#382175: Sun RPC libraries and other stories

[Michael Banck <mbanck@debian.org>]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 03:32:35PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> I'm here at ApacheCon with Simon Phipps and he said that Sun would be
> "delighted to help Debian resolve the RPC licensing problems". He
> wanted to note that the Free Software Definition did not exist at the
> time when Sun released to the community and they couldn't have
> predicted that it would violate the DFSG. Considering when it was
> released, its very open. He also noted that Sun hasn't pursued any
> legal action in all this time and that is a good indicator of their
> position on the whole thing.
> 
> All we need to do is get Simon a diff of what changes we need made and
> he will help us make the arrangements. In short, Sun is all for Debian
> keeping the RPC code in libc6 or the kernel and will do what is
> necessary to make it happen.

Assuming Sun is the sole copyright holder of that code, he could advise
their IP laywers/whoever to relicense the code; either to the glibc
license (LGPL-1.2 or later, currently), or perhaps the BSD license.  The
latter would probably be best for portmap as well, considering is is BSD
licensed.

If Sun does not want to relicense to BSD/LGPL this code due to their
corporate licensing strategy, but still want to see the code remain in
Debian's glibc/portmap, they should propose a compatible license they
like I'd say.

Thanks for working on this, let's hope we can resolve this in time for
Lenny!


regards,

Michael