blackened copyright

[Joost van Baal <joostvb@xs4all.nl>]

Hi,

I'd like to package blackened (an ircII based irc client, 
http://www.blackened.com/blackened) for Debian. However, the current 
blackened tar ball still caries the old ircII copyright statement, which 
says

"
IRC II is copyright (c) 1990 by Michael Sandrof.  You have the
right to copy, compile, and maintain this software.  You also
have the right to make modifcations to this code for local use
                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
only.
^^^^
"

I know David Welton spoke to the ircII coders about this, which
resulted in a less strict license.  
(http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-publicity-9806/msg00006.html)

I saw that e.g. bitchx, another ircII based client, carries this new
license now. 

Should blackened be released under this new license? What is the position
of the blackened maintainer, Timothy Jensen, in this? Does this make
the blackened code free, in the Debian Software Guidelines sence? Does
it matter the old copyright statement still gets distributed with the
blackened code?

I'd really like it if blackened could go in main. I contacted the 
maintainer, but he's not very responsive lately :(

I'd be very glad if someone could make this issues a bit more clear for
me.

Thanks,

Bye,

Joost van Baal

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