Re: Bug#431883: dcraw license does not give permission to distribute modified versions or source alongside

[Steve King <debian@invux.com>]

This is David Coffin's proposed license text for the next version of dcraw:
   No license is required to download and use dcraw.c.  However,
   to lawfully redistribute dcraw, you must either (a) offer, at
   no extra charge, full source code* for all executable files
   containing RESTRICTED functions, (b) distribute this code under
   the GPL Version 2 or later, (c) remove all RESTRICTED functions,
   re-implement them, or copy them from an earlier, unrestricted
   Revision of dcraw.c, or (d) purchase a license from the author.

   The functions that process Foveon images have been RESTRICTED
   since Revision 1.237.  All other code remains free for all uses.

   *If you have not modified dcraw.c in any way, a link to my
   homepage qualifies as "full source code".

To my eyes this seems to tick the DFSG boxes, but I would appreciate any 
 opinions on this matter.

Thanks

--
Steve

Steve King wrote:
> > Package: dcraw
> > Version: 7.02-1
> > Severity: serious
> >
> > On Thu, 05 Jul 2007, Steve King wrote:
> > > However I would appreciate it if the assembled masses of legal
> > > experts could confirm that they agree that this is the case.
> > There's actually an even more fundamental problem with dcraw.c:
> >
> > /*
> >    dcraw.c -- Dave Coffin's raw photo decoder
> >    Copyright 1997-2007 by Dave Coffin, dcoffin a cybercom o net
> >
> >    This is a command-line ANSI C program to convert raw photos from
> >    any digital camera on any computer running any operating system.
> >
> >    No license is required to download and use dcraw.c.  However,
> >    to lawfully redistribute this code, you must either (a) include
> >    full source code* for all executable files containing RESTRICTED
> >    functions, (b) remove all RESTRICTED functions, re-implement them,
> >    or copy them from an earlier, unrestricted Revision of dcraw.c,
> >    or (c) purchase a license from the author.
> >
> >    The functions that process Foveon images have been RESTRICTED
> >    since Revision 1.237.  All other code remains free for all uses.
> >
> >    *If you have not modified dcraw.c in any way, a link to my
> >    homepage qualifies as "full source code".
> >
> >    $Revision: 1.387 $
> >    $Date: 2007/06/24 00:18:52 $
> >  */
> >
> >
> > You'll notice that we have no permission to distribute modified
> > versions of dcraw.c as required by the DFSG.
>
> I don't agree with you here. It seems to me that we do have permission to
> distribute modified versions, provided source is included.
>
>
> >                                              Secondly, it appears that
> > we must include full source code if we've modified dcraw.c, but we
> > don't do that. We distribute source alongside.
>
> All that is required in this license is a link to David's home page.
> The build process does not modify the file dcraw.c, so the footnote clause
> is applicable to this version of dcraw that would be included in debian.
>
> --
> Steve King