Re: Aspell-en license Once again.

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com> wrote:
> Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> writes:
> 
> > Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com> wrote:
> >> Why did you snip the rest of my explanation?  As I said, that statement
> >> is *not* a license.  The DEC word list has no license.
> >
> > The DEC word list has a license, which we do not know all of the
> > specifics about.  However, one of the things that we do know about the
> > license is that it is only for non-commercial use.
> 
> We don't know that.  That's only what the person who compiled the lists
> hypothesizes, whose "copyright" holders are not known.  AFAIK, a license
> can only be granted by the copyright holder.  So what exactly makes that
> statement a license of any sort?

If upstream says that something is tainted, then we usually assume it
is tainted.  Here, upstream is clearly saying that the word-list is
tainted.  Debian may decide that these particular word-lists are not
subject to copyright, but Debian can't say that the word-lists aren't
restricted if they are copyrighted.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu