Re: mindterm copyright (more opensslish stuff)

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> wrote:
> One file, DES.java, has the following comment:
> 
> /******************************************************************************
>  *
>  * Copyright (c) 1998,99 by Mindbright Technology AB, Stockholm, Sweden.
>  *                 www.mindbright.se, info@mindbright.se
>  *
>  * !!! Author's comment: The contents of this file is heavily based
>  * upon Tatu Ylonen's c-code (from the ssh1.2.26 package). That code
>  * in its turn (as stated) is based upon Eric Young's libdes-3.06. The
>  * original code is hence nowadays under a stricter license than
>  * stated in the ssh1.2.26 package so you might want to look into Eric
>  * Young's recent copyright-notice (which is enclosed below for
>  * correctness).
>  */
> (Followed by a license similar to the problimatic one in openssl, including
> an advertising clause that is GPL-incompatable.)
> 
> So, they took the DES code from the ssh 1.2.26 source code (note that
> that version of ssh was non-free as a whole; openbsd chose an earlier
> version to fork). They rewrote it in java, but it is still presumably a
> derivative work.

What is the license on the java modifications by Mindbright?  The
snippet above doesn't make it clear, but the usual custom is to place
modifications under the same license as the original.  In which case
mindterm is still undistributable :(

> I think they're wrong that "original code is hence nowadays under a stricter
> license": instead the license of whatever version of the code was originally
> used is the one mindterm would inherit as a derivative work.

I agree with that.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu