On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:18:15 +0200 Hendrik Weimer wrote: > Hello, > > I've spent some time on the Liberation font license mess [1], Thanks for doing that! It is really appreciated. > here are > my results. Red Hat's Tom Callaway (who is responsible for dealing > with such licensing issues) stated that according to the FSF the > license was "free but GPL-incompatible" [2]. I contacted the FSF to > further clarify on the alleged contradiction in the terms. The reply I > got says that the FSF considers this to be a valid license: > > 'We believe it would have been far clearer if Red Hat had created, > say, the "Liberation Font License" with their extra conditions. > However, since they are the copyright holders, they are within their > rights to do it the way they did.' It seems the FSF is becoming less credible everyday... :-( I think they are applying a double standard here: when the authors of a teTeX package add a restriction to the GNU GPL v2 [3], RMS says it can't be done because it's self-contradictory [4]; when Red Hat do the same, "they are within their rights to do it the way they did"... [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/05/msg00298.html [4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/05/msg00303.html Did you point RMS' message [4] out to the FSF when you contacted them? > > This should make this license acceptable for Debian, right? This makes this license acceptable for the *FSF*, which is a different organization. As far as the Debian Project is concerned, I cannot speak on its behalf because I am not a member (IANADD). My own personal opinion is explained in the thread that you yourself cited [1], hence I won't restate it here. [...] > [1] http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-legal@lists.debian.org/msg36584.html > [2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=253774#c7 My disclaimers are: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/index.html#nanodocs The nano-document series is here! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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