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Re: Export clauses in XFree86 licensing



On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 10:19:54PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote:
> I just discovered that some of the copyright statements in xfree86's
> copyright file have clauses that we usually consider non-free.
[...]
> (from the "GLX PUBLIC LICENSE", and as far as I can eyeball also repeated
> verbatim in the "CID FONT CODE PUBLIC LICENSE":)
[...]
> 7. Claims of Infringement. If Recipient learns of any third party claim
> that any disposition of Covered Code and/or functionality wholly or
> partially infringes the third party's intellectual property rights,
> Recipient will promptly notify SGI of such claim.

Okay, well, it's been a couple of days, and we appear to not have just
consensus but unanimity.  All three of the clauses you cite fail the
DFSG.  (This was my opinion as well upon reading them closely, but as I
said before, I have a vested interest in the outcome and preferred not
to influence the discussion.)

Please file a bug report against the "xfree86" package and include a
reference to this thread's URL on lists.debian.org.

I will get started identifying which code is affected by the various
licenses and who the current upstream is for these works.  I think most
the stuff under the licenses in question in part of the GL
implementation in XFree86, and therefore probably affects the Mesa
packages as well.

I suspect, though I'm not sure yet, that the best approach may be not to
request amendment of the licenses themselves from the large and
heavily-legal-staffed corporations that are using them, but rather to
request dual licensing of the works in question, probably under the
LGPL.  We can use the Mozilla Project as an example.

I would appreciate help with this project, if anyone's inclined.  I
dangle the carrot of commit access to the X Strike Force Subversion
repository to tempt you!  Isn't it temping?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Henning.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |    If you wish to strive for peace of
Debian GNU/Linux                   |    soul, then believe; if you wish to
branden@debian.org                 |    be a devotee of truth, then
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |    inquire.     -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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