Re: gif2png in non-free?
On Wed, 14 Jul 1999, Brian Ristuccia wrote:
> The license for gif2png looks pretty free to me. According to the Free
> Software Foundation, programs that decompress gif files are non governed by
> the IBM and UNISYS patyents. Are there other issues with gif2png that I'm
> overlooking?
>
> http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/gif.html
<snip license>
Looks free enough to me.
> Part of this program (gifread.c) carries the following copyright:
>
> /* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
> /* | Copyright 1990 - 1994, David Koblas. (koblas@netcom.com) | */
> /* | Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software | */
> /* | and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby | */
> /* | granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all | */
> /* | copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission | */
> /* | notice appear in supporting documentation. This software is | */
> /* | provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. | */
> /* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
If I understand this correctly, the licensee is granted permission to
"use, copy, modify, and distribute (...) for any purpose and without fee",
which excludes commercial distribution, which makes it non-free. I don't
know if this is what David Koblas intended. You might want to ask him for
a clarification (or even a change in the license).
But maybe I don't understand this correctly, since there appear to be a
lot of 'free' programs that have a similar clause in their licenses.
I think that "permission to (...) for any purpose and without fee is
hereby granted" is very different from "permission to (...) is hereby
granted without fee". They look very similar, but the first phrase only
grants permission to do things without fee[1] while the second one grants
the permission without fee. Both phrases are actually used quite often in
the licenses I found with 'find /usr/doc -name copyright -type f'.
But IANAL, of course. Can any lawyer (or another license expert) please
comment on this? I'm sure this subject has come up before. A link to a web
page that explains it would be good enough for me.
Remco
[1] Granting permission to distribute the software without fee only makes
it non-free, right?
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