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Re: reiserfs-utils_3.5.19-1_i386.changes REJECTED (fwd)



> > > I think I understand what the license is trying to say (that non-GPL
> > > licenses are available from the author, if you don't want to be bound
> > > by the terms of the GPL?), but the way it's currently worded is
> > > incredibly sloppy and fails the DFSG.
> > 
> > That blurb simply states a fact (that the copyright holder has the right
> > to relicense), and I'm not sure how stating a fact is contrary to the
> > DFSG.
> 
> No, that blurb is ambiguous.  It can be taken as an offer for an
> additional license, or it can be taken as a statement which conflicts
> with the GPL.
> 
> I would hope that it shouldn't be taken as a statement which conflicts
> with the GPL, but I think it's obvious that the phrasing should be
> cleaned up.

The whole point of the EXCERPT of the paragraph from the licenses is a
clarification to an ambiguous phrasing of one of the points in the GPL.

Without further ado, the actual full thing:
+[LICENSE] ReiserFS is hereby licensed under the GNU General
+Public License version 2.  Please see the file "COPYING"
+which should have accompanied this software distribution for
+details of that license.
+
+Since that license (particularly 2.b) is necessarily vague in certain
+areas due to its generality, the following interpretations shall govern.
+Some may consider these terms to be a supplemental license to the GPL.
+You may include ReiserFS in a Linux kernel which you may then include
+with anything, and you may even include it with a Linux kernel with
+non-GPL'd kernel modules.  You may include it in any kernel which is
+wholly GPL'd including its kernel modules which you may then include
+with anything.  If you wish to use it for a kernel which you sell usage
+or copying licenses for, which is not listed above, then you must obtain
+an additional license.  If you wish to integrate it with any other
+software system which is not GPL'd, without integrating it into an
+operating system kernel, then you must obtain an additional license.
+This is an interpretation of what is and is not part of the software
+program falling under the GPL section 2.b., and is intended as a
+specification of (with a slight supplement to), not an exception to, the
+GPL as applied to this particular piece of software.
+
+Further licensing options are available for commercial and/or other
+interests directly from Hans Reiser:  reiser@idiom.com.  If you
+interpret the GPL as not allowing those additional licensing options,
+you read it wrongly, when carefully read you can see that those
+restrictions on additional terms do not apply to the owner of the
+copyright, and my interpretation of this shall govern for this license.
+
+[END LICENSE]

Andrew



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