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Re: Problematic Software Licenses



Benjamin Cutler wrote:
> There's a piece of software called "acc" I'd like to package up and
> possibly include in Debian (along with some other tools that complement
> it, and are under seperate, DSFG-free licenses, so they're not an
> issue), but the included licenses are problematic at best. I've attached
> them below. The problem is that the first license is pretty obviously
> complete bunk, because it sounds like a purchased program, not a piece
> of source code released to the public. The second license seems to be
> less restrictive, but it's pretty vague at the same time. I already
> received one opinion that it's pretty much impossible to include this
> with Debian because of the first license, but I'm wondering if anybody
> has any advice on if this is the sort of issue that we could "dance
> around", though I'm guessing it's not. Barring that, is there any way of
> including this in Debian without receiving a new license from Raven?
> I've already attempted to contact them with no luck.

It appears to me that the first attachment "eula.txt" is the license,
and the second attachment "readme.txt" is just a readme file, which
happens to contain a loose interpretation of the license by a
non-lawyer.  However, neither the original license nor the
interpretation is a Free Software license.

- Josh Triplett



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