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Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL



MJ Ray said on Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 09:39:37AM +0100,:

 > >I'm afraid that  this list will have to do both  - analyse licenses in
 > >general,  and also scturinise  specific packages  when brought  to our
 > >notice.
 > 
 > Why?
 > 
 > >In the specific case of  licenses which are outright non-free, we need
 > >to tell DDs / upstream that packages under a particular license cannot
 > >be in the archives.
 > 
 > No, we need to tell DDs/upstream what changes need to be made for a 
 > package under that licence to be part of debian. "Just saying no" is 
 > the wrong thing to do.

Hmm. Now,  if somebody asks  for inclusion of  a package under  one of
Microsoft's EULAs, I know there are many, but hope you get the general
trend  of the  terms and  conditions  - no  modifications, no  reverse
engieneering, not  more than 1  back up at  a time, not more  than one
copy  in the  ram, not  more than  one processor  at a  time.  bla bla
bla....

Can -legal  do anything apart from saying  a `no'? So we  need to look
at the license, is it not?

 > Even if a package is under a poor licence, there maybe could still

Even good packages under good  licenses like the BSD 2 clause license,
might have to be rejected if they implemented something which is under
an actively enforced patent.

So we need to look at packages too. No? 
   
 > exceptions/waivers granted. I'm not sure whether debian has accepted 
 > such things before.

I'm hardly 18 months on this list. 

 > their software  is not  trying to get  into debian). The  only case
 > when it is useful is if this list is asked for comments on a draft,
 > usually with some particular software for debian in mind.

Certainly yes.

-- 
         Mahesh T. Pai    <<>>   http://paivakil.port5.com
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