OpenCascade license opinion
Greetings,
I just sent in an RFP for Salomé, a very nice and highly capable
engineering tool under LGPL.
It depends on OpenCascade, which has a license which sounds DFSG-free.
The license is at: http://www.opencascade.org/occ/license/
There were two discussions on the OpenCascade license last year:
* http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/06/msg00222.html
concluded: the "In short" preamble description is not free, but
the license itself is, so an upstream declaration that the
preamble is not binding would make it DFSG-free.
* http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/03/msg00286.html
concluded that the WildMagic license is non-free, but did not
conclude anything about OpenCascade.
Aurelien, did you contact upstream and receive any reply on the preamble
status? I don't see anything in WNPP, nor in unstable, nor in incoming.
The preamble is:
In short, Open CASCADE Technology Public License is LGPL-like
with certain differences. You are permitted to use Open CASCADE
Technology within commercial environments and you are obliged to
acknowledge its use. You are also obliged to send your
modifications of the original source code (if you have made any)
to the Initial Developer (i.e. Open CASCADE S.A.S.).
The "no private modifications without sending them upstream" part
doesn't actually say that. I see it in section 4, "provided that:
You document all Your Modifications, indicate the date of each
such Modifications, designate the version of the Software You
used, prominently include a file carrying such information with
respect to the Modifications and duplicate the copyright and
other proprietary notices and disclaimers attached hereto as
Schedule "B" or any other notices or disclaimers attached to the
Software with your Modifications.
That's a pretty stringent requirement, but I'm not sure it makes it
non-free. (This is what makes it more stringent than GPL/LGPL, and
probably GPL-incompatible.) I think patch files in a package, or even
the Debian .diff.gz file, should qualify as sufficiently describing the
modifications and timestamps.
A quick Google search turned up a Slashdot article claiming this is not
OSD-free. But when I go to the article, a search for "Cascade" turns up
nothing...
Thanks for any help you can provide, and please CC me on replies.
-Adam
--
GPG fingerprint: D54D 1AEE B11C CE9B A02B C5DD 526F 01E8 564E E4B6
Engineering consulting with open source tools
http://www.opennovation.com/
Reply to: