Re: Question about license compatibility
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.
In the face of that, would it be possible to include a package of ngspice in the
non-free tree? I mean, it *is* a unique package and having the geda suit without
it does seem a bit strange...
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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
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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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