is scilab really non-free?

[Torsten Werner <twerner@debian.org>]

Hello,


May we discuss scilab's license, please? Scilab is currently assumed to
be non-free because of one sentence(1) in its license text
http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/license.txt :

   Any commercial use or circulation of the DERIVED SOFTWARE shall
   have been previously authorized by INRIA and ENPC.

But I suppose that is only relevant if someone wants to distribute
scilab with another license. As long as everyone sticks to scilab's
original license there seems to be no problem with commercial use and
such a restriction is compatible with the DFGS
http://www.debian.org/social_contract.en.html#guidelines (see paragraph
3).

Please keep the Cc: to the scilab developers in your replies. They call
their software 'free'---see http://www.scilab.org/ .


Regards,
Torsten Werner


(1) The sentence appears twice in the license text.

-- 
Torsten Werner, Dipl.-Phys.            Dresden University of Technology
email@twerner42.de                   +49 351 46336711 / +49 162 3123004
http://www.twerner42.de/                      telefax: +49 351 46336809