On Sat, 18 Oct 2003, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > I want to package tqsllib and trustedqsl, which are a ham radio > application. However the DFSGness is not clear to me so I welcome > your comments. It appears to me to be similar to the BSD including > the advertising clause. How do we deal with that scenario these days? We've generally been interpreting such clauses as DFSG free[1], with caveats related to linking and noting that the advertising clause itself is just barely on the free side of the free<->non-free border. If possible, I'd appreciate if you can try to get upstream to follow the UC Regents lead and remove the advertising clause from their license, as it the copyright itself is generally enough advertisement. (There's an excellent analysis of it at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html) If you need any assistance, or if they have questions, feel free to refer them to -legal. Don Armstrong 1: I personally don't really like the advertising clause, and sometimes wish we could jettison all software that uses it. I think my view is a minority one, but it's possible that in the future more people will come forward with reasonable arguments for the non-freeness of software with such an advertising clause. -- There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. -- Woody Allen http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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