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Re: Question about license compatibility



On Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 02:26:16AM +0300, Gerasimos Melissaratos wrote:
> Below I include the answer I got from Mr Nenzi about the ngspice licencing.
> In short, I asked him about the possibility of a re-release of ngspice with
> the new BSD license or something else compatible with Debian. The short
> answer is no.

Doesn't the message cited below indicate that ngspice is available under
4-clause BSD?  Who ever said that the old BSD license wasn't allowed in
Debian?

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/

> ---------------------------------------------------
> Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 21:39:52 +0200  Download Re: ngspice licencing.msg
> From: Paolo Nenzi <p.nenzi@ieee.org>   Import addresses p.nenzi@ieee.org  Block
> email p.nenzi@ieee.org   Block SMTP Relay relay-pt4.poste.it
> Reply-to: p.nenzi@ieee.org
> To: Gerasimos Melissaratos <gmelis@mfa.gr>
> Subject: Re: ngspice licencing 	All headers
>  
> Dear Gerasimos,
> 
> Sorry for this delay in answering but I am on holidays and have some
> spare time to scan the messages on ngspice lists.
> 
> The licensing of ngspice is quite intricated but, AFAIK ngspice cannot
> be packaged for official-debian. You can consider ngspice covered by the
> old BSD license (the one with the obnoxiuous clause). Look at the Xspice
> license, since ngspice includes xspice, then its license applies too.
> 
> Hope to have answered to your question. I am sorry but I did not succeed
> in asking Berkeley's Regents for a license change.
> 
> Ciao,
> Paolo
> ---------------------------------------------------
> 
> On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:03:56 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote
> > On Thursday 21 July 2005 04:49 pm, Gerasimos Melissaratos wrote:
> >
> > > I'd like to create a package for ng-spice, which seems to be governed by
> > > two licenses, which I include herein. In first reading I cannot see any
> > > real discrepancies, but of course IANAL. Pls tell me if any of them is
> > > compatible with DFSG.
> > 
> > I'm surprised no one has responded to this yet...  so I guess I'll get 
> > the ball rolling.  Its my opinion that both licenses are non-free, for 
> > reasonably well established and non-controversial reasons.
> > 
> > License 1 contains a limitation on use ("educational, research and non-
> > profit purposes, without fee") which is a violation of DFSG #6.  
> > License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision 
> > that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least 
> > bad policy.  Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for 
> > distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of 
> > the vendors.  Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6...  but 
> > both are kind of stretches.
> > 
> > Anyone else have thoughts?
> > 
> > -- 
> > Sean Kellogg
> > 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law
> > Graduate & Professional Student Senate Treasurer
> > UW Service & Activities Committee Interim Chair 
> > w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com
> > 
> > So, let go
> >  ...Jump in
> >   ...Oh well, what you waiting for?
> >    ...it's all right
> >     ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
> 
> 
> --
> Gerasimos Melissaratos (gmelis@mfa.gr)
> 
> 
> -- 
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