Re: Is this license DFSG-free?

["Adam Warner" <lists@consulting.net.nz>]

Hi Nicolas Kratz,

>> This is "freeware"; it is acutely non-free (why do you even have to
>> ask?).
> 
> I rather ask and take the ridicule, if any, than brooding over legal
> implications I'm not very likely to understand. I do have severe trouble
> to parse legalese and licenses, maybe I'm just a few neurons short of a
> circuit in that area. Thanks for the categorization.

Nicolas you have not been granted any right to modify the software. Look
at the MIT licence as a template of the most permissive:
http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

This contains a broad set of permissions: "...without limitation the
rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:"

Now ask yourself how much more restrictive one can make a licence while
still satisfying the Debian Social Contract and the DFSG:
http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html

While edge cases are difficult this isn't one of them. If a permission is
not granted that is covered by copyright law then the right is essentially
reserved for exploitation by the copyright holder/licensor. People in
general only have permission to distribute the files. How can you package
them as a part of Debian when you at least need the right to modify them?

   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.

There is a very simple rule of thumb you haven't grokked: If you haven't
been granted the permission to do something covered by copyright law in
the licence then you don't have that permission. Once you realise this it
will be easy to identify some licenses as not being DFSG-free. That you
were yet to realise this should not open you up to ridicule.

Regards,
Adam