Re: DNSsafe license
In article <[🔎] E10NKzN-0003qw-00@night> you wrote:
> I'm afraid this is definitely non-free. It forbids distribution of
> modified versions on several counts:
Be patient with me. I don't see the problem, at least not yet. I wouldn't
have brought the license to debian-legal if I thought it were beyond question,
but some discussion will be required to convince me of your assertions.
>> The DNSsafe software cannot be used or distributed separately from the
>> BIND software. You only have the right to use it or distribute it as
>> a bundled, integrated product.
Which section of the DFSG does this violate? It prevents me from packaging
things such that the DNSsafe library is a separate entity from BIND, clearly.
It means that someone else can't "borrow" the DNSsafe library from BIND without
negotiating a different license with RSA. However, I fail to see how this
restricts distribution of modified versions of BIND in any way.
>> The DNSsafe software can ONLY be used to provide authentication for
>> resource records in the Domain Name System, as specified in RFC 2065
>> and successors. You cannot modify the BIND software to use the
>> DNSsafe software for other purposes, or to make its cryptographic
>> functions available to end-users for other uses.
This is unfriendly to the free software community at large, to the extent that
someone might want to use the DNSsafe code for some non-DNS purpose which this
license would not cover, forcing them to negotiate a different license with
RSA. But again, I don't see how this violates the DFSG... or how it in any
way prevents distribution of BIND.
>> If you modify the DNSsafe software itself, you cannot modify its
>> documented API, [...]
This one is the most problematic point for me. I'd like the API to be as free
as the software, but I can't see how this violates the DFSG. We have lots of
cases where free software implements one or the other side of a proprietary
API, after all.
Bdale
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