Re: reiser4 non-free?

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

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.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu