Re: Bug#140103: ITP: alliance -- VLSI CAD system
Chris Ruffin <cmruffin@debian.org> wrote:
> I was a little concerned about that as well, but my (uninformed and
> possibly incorrect) conclusion was that this contradiction in their
> licensing text was a dispute between the developers of the software
> and the author of the GPL. AFAIK the addition of the requirement to
> mention the BSD-style acclamation doesn't violate anything in the
> DFSG, and to my knowledge doesn't invalidate the GPL. After all the
> BSD license meets the DFSG. Is it really up to us to resolve this?
The notification clause is incompatible with the GPL. They are being
inconsistent. It would be best to ask for a clarification. Until
then, Debian shouldn't distribute it.
In any case, they could write their own license which is basically the
GPL with this added restriction. That might even be DFSG-free, though
the use restriction makes it annoying. It would also be incompatible
with anything else under the GPL.
Phrasing it as a request would be much more polite, and wouldn't
require surgery on the GPL. I don't know exactly what this software
does, but they could also have the software insert the phrase into the
output, much like Latex2HTML does.
Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu
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