Pre-ITP - LARN and Noah Morgan
I'd like to package the existing game "LARN" for Debian.
Before I send out an ITP, I'd like to clarify one issue.
The text below is what I'd currently put in "debian/copyright".
Is this sufficient to enable addition into contrib or main ?
Nathan Tenny has the following note on a web page ...
http://people.qualcomm.com/ntenny/larn.html
> As an historical note: I've never really known anything
> about Noah Morgan, the author of the original Larn and hence,
> in some sense, the guy from whom I learned C. In looking
> for the source code, I learned that he died in the late 1990s.
{begin}
This applies to LARN versions 12.2 and 12.3 as of August 2005.
In 1990, Kevin wrote:
> LARN was released for the UNIX environment in 1986 by Noah Morgan.
> It was subsequently ported to the MS-DOS environment by Don Kneller.
> Kevin Routley has been working on enhancements to LARN on and off
> for the past year.
There are six known contributors:
Noah Morgan Original author of LARN
Don Kneller Port for DECRainbow and PC compatible
Fred Fish Termcap support for VMS port
Daniel Kegel Enhanced ansi terminal decoding for DOS
Kevin Routley Integration, enhancement and release
Alexander Perry Port for Linux 2.x kernel and GCC 3.x
Fred Fish and Daniel Kegel included specific license text in
their contributions that limit use to Personal, Noncommercial.
The associated materials have been omitted from the Debian
release so the remainder meets DFSG. Consequently, anyone
wishing to compile for DOS or VMS should not use this source.
In an email on Aug 15 2005, Kevin wrote to Alex:
> I proceeded on the casual assumption that Noah Morgan
> and Don Kneller would have no issues with changes
> being made and posted. They posted to a public forum,
> and I seem to vaguely recall that their licensing
> permitted changes and redistribution as long as their
> original copyright statements were preserved. I never
> heard anything from anyone to the contrary, but that
> doesn't mean that it was "OK".
Accordingly, we believe Noah and Don's intentions met DFSG.
Kevin's email described his own intentions:
> I had every intention of distributing my changes to
> Larn under the same conditions. I made every effort at
> the time to document my intentions, but either that
> was insufficient or you possibly have an incomplete
> distribution, or more likely as you said the "rules"
> have changed.
Debian/Linux/GCC porting contributions are under modified BSD:
Copyright (c) 2005 Alexander Perry <alex.perry@ieee.org>
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
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