On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:56:25 +0200 Hendrik Weimer wrote: > Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it> writes: > > > On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:41:08 +0200 Hendrik Weimer wrote: > > > >> Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it> writes: > > [...] > >> > Did you point RMS' message [4] out to the FSF when you contacted them? > >> > >> I did. > > > > And how did they explain the difference in their conclusions?!? > > They didn't. However, I am not sure whether RMS's message can be > considered as official position of the FSF. I would say quite official... There have been cases in the past where RMS "censored" GNU developers' diverging opinions. E.g.: a GNU developer (Thomas Bushnell) was dismissed by RMS for having publicly spoken against the GFDL (see http://lwn.net/Articles/59147/ and http://lists.softwarelibero.it/pipermail/discussioni/2003-November/008465.html). [...] > > The main argument was that the license (GPLv2 + restrictions) is > > self-contradictory and thus invalid. > > This conclusion was *confirmed* by RMS, who basically brought the same > > argument. However, I think the argument holds even if RMS and/or the > > FSF change(s) his/their mind(s) afterwards, unless he/they bring(s) new > > data to support his/their new opposite conclusion... > > As was already pointed out in the previous thread, this interpretation > relies on that the "no further restrictions" clause applies to GPLv2 + > restrictions, not to GPLv2 alone. I've already explained (in the cited old debian-legal thread) why I don't think this interpretation is backed by the actual GPLv2 text. > > I fully agree with you that the Liberation Font license is > sub-optimal, however I do not see a scenario where distribution of the > fonts by Debian led to legal trouble or a violation of the DFSG. Can > you think of such a situation? *If* my analysis is correct, we do not have *any* valid license to distribute (let alone modify) those fonts. Hence there may be legal troubles, namely copyright violation issues, in distributing them. This makes them unsuitable even for the non-free archive! One could say that the intention of Red Hat to grant a redistribution (and modification) permission is clear, but in fact it is *not* clear *at all*, being self-contradictory! So, once again, I don't think we have a valid license to redistribute (and/or modify) those fonts... As usual: 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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