On Sat, Jul 31, 1999 at 01:09:47AM -0400, Mike Goldman wrote:
> Need a legal opinion on the following license. I assume #9 causes this
> to be classifiable as "non-free" (pity, though) -- the only other
> concern I had was whether #8 posed any sort of problem for our including
> software under this license in Debian.
I only looked at paragrpahs 8 and 9 closely, someone else may have issues
with other parts of the license I didn't look closely enough to see.
Paragraph 8 is a "no warranty, you can't sue us" Nothing to fear.
Paragraph 9 is US specific which is bad, though whether or not it will
hurt anything I'm not immediately sure. It says "government", it should
say US government if it says anything. Also, I don't know about the
references of law they mention---if they apply whether the license says
they do or not, then it's okay. OTHERWISE, it's discriminating against
the US government (or taken at its word as we traditionally do) any
government. That would most definitely be discriminatory.
> 8. LICENSEE INDEMNIFICATION. LICENSEE SHALL INDEMNIFY COMPANY AGAINST
> ALL COSTS AND DAMAGE JUDGEMENTS, INCLUDING ATTORNEY'S FEES AND COSTS
> OF DEFENSE, INCURRED BECAUSE OF CLAIMS OF DAMAGE ARISING FROM LICENSEE'S
> POSSESSION OR USE OR INABILITY TO USE SOFTWARE.
>
> 9. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED RIGHTS. The SOFTWARE and documentation are
> provided with RESTRICTED RIGHTS. Use duplication, or disclosure by
> the Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph
> (c)(1)(ii) of The Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause
> in DFARS 252.227-7013, or subparagraphs (c)(i) and (2) of the Commercial
> Computer Software -- Restricted Rights at 48 CFR 52.227-19, as applicable.
> Manufacturer is [Company name and address].
Included for reference
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer
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"Actually, the only distribution of Linux I've ever used that passed the
rootshell test out of the box (hit rootshell at the time the dist is
released and see if you can break the OS with scripts from there) is
Debian."
-- seen on the Linux security-audit mailing list
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