Re: [DSFG] question: Custom hand written notice

[Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net>]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 11:04:32AM +0200, Jari Aalto wrote:
>
>> I'm preparing a package and would like to hear if this licence
>> (author's voice) is DSFG free. I intend to add this to
>> debian/copyright:
>
>>     License:
>
>>     The snow source code and the algorithms contained within it are free
>>     for non-commercial use. Licences for commercial single-customer
>>     applications will usually be granted free of charge, but contact the
>>     author for confirmation. 
>
> Certainly not; this is a clear use restriction.
>
>>     Notes:
>
>>     (*)As of 29 May 1999 the source code has changed from being public
>>     domain to being free for non-commercial use. However, commercial users
>>     are automatically granted a licence for any use of the snow code and
>>     algorithms deployed before this date.
>
>> Also in what section would this software go: main, non-free?
>
> This seems to be the same question as the one you asked above?  Perhaps you
> meant to ask first whether it's ok for Debian to distribute it.  

Yes, this was the intention of the second question.

> Anyway, I don't see anything in this license that constitutes
> permission to redistribute; given that the author apparently also
> doesn't know what "public domain" means, I certainly wouldn't rely
> on perceived implicit permission to redistribute the code when
> putting it into non-free.

So the correct procedure, in order to submit the package to Debian, is
to get the Author to agree with a licence that's in par with DSFG. I'll
see what I can do.

Btw, is DSFG close to OSI approved or are there list somewhere that
describes the difference?

Thanks,
Jari