Re: nasm license: is this DFSG free?
On Thu, Dec 10, 1998 at 16:44:52 +0100, Juan Cespedes wrote:
> Here's a copy of the license. Any comments will be greatly
> appreciated; the author is willing to change it if it doesn't meet our
> needs.
The nasm author(s) have said they'd release it under GPL; that would clear
all problems. See the logs for #21945 .
> Basically, NASM is free. You can't charge for it.
Doesn't allow for a copying fee -> non-free.
> You can copy it as much as you like. You can incorporate it, or bits of
> it, into other free programs if you want.
No definition of "free" given -> unclear.
> (But we want to know about it if you do, and we want to be mentioned in
> the credits.) We may well allow you to incorporate it into commercial
> software too,
DFSG-free software can be commercial too. This should say "proprietory" or
"binary-only" or somesuch.
> but we'll probably demand some money for it, and we'll
> certainly demand to be given credit. And in extreme cases (although I
> can't immediately think of a reason we might actually want to do this) we
> may refuse to let you do it at all.
> III. Modified forms of the Software may be created and distributed
> as long as the authors are informed of this action if possible,
This shouldn't be obligatory. It should be a request, clearly separated from
the main body of the license.
> as long as the resulting work remains under this licence, as long as the
> modified form of the Software is distributed with documentation which
> still gives credit to the original authors of the Software, and as long as
> the modified form of the Software is distributed with a clear statement
> that it is not the original form of the Software in the form that it was
> distributed by the authors.
>
> IV. The Software, or parts thereof, may be incorporated into other
> software which is not freely redistributable (i.e. software for
> which a fee is charged),
I can ask a fee for my GPLed code; that doesn't make it not freely
redistributable. See RMS, "Selling Free Software (can be OK)" at www.gnu.org
.
> as long as permission is granted from the authors of the Software. The
> authors reserve the right to grant this permission only for a fee, which
> may at our option take the form of royalty payments. The authors also
> reserve the right to refuse to grant permission if they deem it necessary.
Ray
--
PATRIOTISM A great British writer once said that if he had to choose
between betraying his country and betraying a friend he hoped he would
have the decency to betray his country.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
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