On Wed, Mar 31, 1999 at 12:23:42AM +0100, Pedro Guerreiro wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I am packaging a new library (cgraph) and searching the README file I found
> this:
>
> -*-
> The Cgraph Library source code, examples, and documentation are in the public
> domain. Utilities included in the utils* directories are not ours, and under
> the distribution terms specified therein.
> -*-
Public Domain while generally non-existant for 70 years or so after the
publication date if you wanna get real technical about it (US law, EU
too?) is going to be treated in court as a non-exclusive grant of license
to use, modify, distribute, and pretty much anything else you want with
the code.
It's suitable for main and is in fact the most restriction free license
there is, bar none. Of course it's 100% exploitable, but so's the X
license. =>
> -*-
> Distribution:
>
> open must only be distributed free of charges. (for other ways of
> distribution you have to get my written consent) You are only allowed to
> distribute unmodified copies of this software. You may distribute modified
> copies if you unmistakably mark them as such. You are only allowed to
> distribute this software in a bundle (compressed tar archive or any other
> archiving/compressing method with similar purpose) including all files that
> are part of this software package (open.m open.h open.1 open.info appopen.1
> Makefile Makefile.postamble Makefile.preamble PB.project)
> -*-
>
> I don't think they can go in main, but in my opinion they go to /dev/null,
> because they are not needed.
While slightly obnoxious, I am uncertain this is non-free. You have to
distribute the author's package if you distribute anything, unless it's
clearly marked as such.
The less obnoxious but more ambiguous issue is the "free of charges"
thing. It's pretty clear to me that the intent is that you can't charge
just for open, that not that you can't charge for say a cdrom which just
happens to contain open among other things. However this is ambiguous
and could be argued non-free on those grounds.
Clarification of these points would be nice and the group consensus may
be that it is needed before this can be considered free.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer
PGP: E8D68481E3A8BB77 8EE22996C9445FBE The Source Comes First!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
How many months are we going to be behind them [Redhat] with a glibc
release?"
-- Jim Pick, 8 months before Debian 2.0 is finally released
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