Bug#183672: phpnuke: license is not DFSG-free
Package: phpnuke
Version: n/a
Severity: grave
Tags: upstream, woody, sarge, sid
(John Goerzen is the person who originally noted this.)
/usr/share/doc/phpnuke/copyright contains the following:
##############################################################################
# I M P O R T A N T N O T E #
##############################################################################
# IMPORTANT: I saw many sites that removes the copyright line in the footer #
# of each page. YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO REMOVE NOR CHANGE/EDIT THAT NOTE. If I #
# still see this problem happening I'll need to take extreme measures that #
# can include: to change the PHP-Nuke license, to encrypt some parts of the #
# code, stop distributing it for free and in an extreme case stop developing #
# it. The decision is in your hands. #
# If you do not agreed with this simple rule, delete all PHP-Nuke files #
# right now and move away from it. Thanks. #
##############################################################################
The consensus on debian-legal, after a week of discussion, is that the
license as forwarded and interpreted by the copyright holder is not
DFSG-free, as it places an unacceptable restriction on modification;
that means it violates DFSG 3 ("Derived Works").
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow
them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the
original software.
The discussion on debian-legal was wide-ranging and covered several
peripheral issues, but no one on the list, as far as I can tell, was willing to
regard the current license as interpreted by the author as DFSG-free.
People explicitly rejecting it as non-DFSG free include:
Steve Langasek
John Goerzen
Branden Robinson
Thomas Bushnell, BSG
Mark Rafn
Please move this package to non-free or drop it from the distribution.
If you choose the latter, this bug can probably be reassigned to
ftp.debian.org; be sure to explicitly request its removal as well as
reassigning it, if that is the course you choose.
Here are some links to the debian-legal discussion:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200302/msg00164.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200303/msg00000.html
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: powerpc
Kernel: Linux redwald 2.4.19-powerpc #1 Mon Sep 9 09:01:43 EDT 2002 ppc
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C
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