Re: [Jeff Squyres <jsquyres@lsc.nd.edu>] New LAM/MPI license
Greetings! Hi Jeff!
Jeffry Smith <smith@missioncriticallinux.com> writes:
<many good points omitted>
> I agree with others that the Artistic is "problematic." Other alternatives to look at are the new BSD and the MIT license, if you don't mind stuff becoming proprietary. If you do, LGPL may be an alternative. Personally, I think sticking to an existing license reduces all the "legal" questions, especially for non-lawyer types.
>
> jeff
>
>
I've forwarded this to debian-legal as well, and have received the
following advice:
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Brian Russo <brusso@phys.hawaii.edu>:
> isn't this just the same Artistic license as Perl, etc is released
> under?
>
> looks like it (i just skimmed), in which case it's DFSG-free.
Could the owners be persuaded to licence their program under the
disjunction of the Artistic license and the GPL?
This is how Perl is licensed. Even though the Artistic licence is
itself (I think) GPL-compatible, it's good to have the GPL as an
explicit option, because then people can tell immediately, and without
consulting a lawyer, that Perl's licence is GPL-compatible, and it can
never be disputed in the future.
If you haven't already done so, read this:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#ArtisticLicense
Edmund
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The Artistic License is widely considered problematic, on account of
it's vagueness. The FSF doesn't consider it a free license. I'm not
sure if Debian has an offical stance on it. =20
Almost every piece of software that uses the Artistic License also
allows the GPL as an alternative license (this is the way Perl
works). This avoids the problems raised the by the Artistic License. =20
You should let the upstream authors know about these problems. If
they really want people to be able to do all the things they mention
without restriction, they should consider the X license. =20
=20
sam th =20
sam@uchicago.edu
http://www.abisource.com/~sam/
GnuPG Key: =20
http://www.abisource.com/~sam/key
If they like the general tone of the Artistic license, you might
suggest they look at the "Clarified Artistic License":
http://www.appwatch.com/license/ncftp-3.0.2.txt
This is listed on the FSF page as free and GPL compatible.
Steve
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Perhaps I could add a question: What is the goal in changing the
license? What is the matter with the GPL?
Take care,
--
Camm Maguire camm@enhanced.com
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." -- Baha'u'llah
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