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Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?



Junichi Uekawa wrote:

However, portaudio looks non-free to me.

http://www.portaudio.com/license.html:
* Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is
requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that
they can be incorporated into the canonical version.
Sounds quite clearly like a request to me, not a requirement.

The difference between a non-binding request and a requirement is a
fine line especially considering why it's in the main license text not
some accompanying documentation.

Clarifying this is what is really required; moving the problematic
clause out of the way would help.
Hence my suggestion of the use of the word 'encouraged' instead. It is Debian Policy to encourage Maintainers to cycle changes back upstream anyway. It does not say 'Must' or even 'Should' here. I agree that it would be good if it were worded less ambiguously. I don't see how this phrase would prevent any particular usage of PortAudio, either in Debian or derived distribution, surely that is the critical issue? The direction we give to the PortAudio devs needs to be clear and unambiguous too, so I won't go on about this, to save driving round the block again. ;)

cheers

tim hall



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