DFSG vs Pine's legal notices: where exactly is the gotcha?
Hello.
Way back when I was using RedHat, when I asked why pine was not included in
Debian (at least in non-free), local debian developers used to answer me
with "because it is not free".
I understand that Debian has quite a stringent definition of what free is,
but I had a look at the DFSG and at pine's legal notices and I fail to see
exactly where the problem lies.
One part of pine's license caught my attention and I quote:
-cut-cut-
Redistribution of this release is permitted as follows, or by mutual
agreement:
(a) In free-of-charge or at-cost distributions by non-profit concerns;
(b) In free-of-charge distributions by for-profit concerns;
(c) Inclusion in a CD-ROM collection of free-of-charge, shareware, or
non-proprietary software for which a fee may be charged for the packaged
distribution.
-cut-cut-
IANAL, but it would appear to me that point A applies to Debian, point B to
RedHat's freely downloadable distribution and C to RedHat's boxed set, for
example.
My take on this is that RedHat, just to use an example of commercial
distribution I know well, is even more constrained than Debian is when
redistributing free software, since, well, they do make money out of it and
Debian does not.
So, from a legal standpoint, where is the problem?
TIA for your help,
Andrea.
--
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