Re: License review request: LinuxMagic FSCL
Ryan Finnie wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I responded to an RFP[0] for packaging magic-smtpd[1], and need some
> help on the legal side. I see 3 issues here:
>
> 1. The license[2], also included below, has not been reviewed by the
> OSI, and is not used in any existing Debian package. The company
> itself considers it "open source", but I feel I am not qualified to
> make a determination.
My GOD. It's EXTREMELY LONG.
It has several non-free requirements:
(1) Forced distribution. If you Deploy to anyone, you must make changes
publicly available. Fails dissident test.
(2) Choice-of-venue. Fails "force people to fly to Vancouver" test.
(3) The notice in exhibit A is false: you do not agree to this license by
"using" the software. Forces the display of false notices.
There are several requirements, like the "Wizards get the right to use all
your modifications" one, which are free requirements but obnoxious.
Incidentally, the license text itself seems to be a copyright violation,
since it lifts text from the Apple Public Software License, which IIRC
isn't licensed for modification.....
> 2. The software is designed to replace certain components of qmail,
> which is wholly non-free. Even if the license is clean, does this
> make the software part of the non-free archive as well?
That would make it 'contrib', but it's non-free, so don't worry about it.
> I guess
> theoretically you could write Free software that would interface with
> magic-smtpd...
>
> 3. More of a technical packaging question, but as long as I'm here...
> Since magic-smtpd basically requires qmail, and qmail technically
> doesn't exist within Debian (you get the qmail-src package and run
> build-qmail to build your own local qmail .deb), will having a
> Depends: qmail (but it doesn't Build-Depends: qmail) be a problem to
> the Debian package system? Would I have to Recommends: qmail instead?
No, you can Depends: on out-of-Debian stuff if your package is "contrib"
or "non-free".
> Thank you for your time,
> Ryan Finnie
--
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@fastmail.fm>
Bush admitted to violating FISA and said he was proud of it.
So why isn't he in prison yet?...
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