Re: reiser4 non-free?

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> writes:

> David Masover <ninja@slaphack.com> wrote:
>> First and foremost:  Hans, this is your project.  Someone willing to
>> replace entire APIs with things that feel like files is obviously not
>> afraid of creating something new.  So at the end of the day, it
>> shouldn't matter too much that it's in Debian Non-free, especially if
>> (assuming I heard correctly) XFree86 is also non-free.
>
> People seem to be missing this issue, so I'll bring it up again.  The
> problem is not so much whether the license is free or not.  The
> problem is that it is incompatible with the GPL.  That means that
> Debian can't distribute it _at all_.  Not in main, not in non-free.
> Not at all.
>
> The license may be perfectly free (e.g. the IBM CPL), but if it is
> incompatible with the GPL, then Debian can't distribute it.

You're right, Walter, and thank you for the clarification.  To clarify
further, Debian can't distribute a derivative work of the Linux kernel
which is not licensed under the GPL.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu