[non-free] Packaging a closed-source application with limited distribution access
Hello,
I would like to package Intersystems Caché, a proprietary database by
Intersystems and upload it to non-free.
I am confident I will get a written redistribution permission for
Debian (for non-free). I am already working with them on this. In this
regard, it should be no different from other packages in non-free.
I would be using the SuSe 10 binary tarball as the starting point. I
have been running and deployed several Caché versions (5.0, 5.1,
2007.1, 2007.2, 2008.1 and 2008.2) on several versions of Debian and
Ubuntu for years and I have had no problems at all.
The main (legal) problem is accessing that binary tarball.
Intersystems distributes a single-user version of Caché in their
website for free ( http://www.intersystems.com/cache/ ) but I have
been told by Intersystems support this version would be useless. The
reason is when you license Caché, you will receive a cache.key file
you need to copy to a predefined folder in order for commercial
features to be enabled. The freely downloadable version ignores this
key file, so there is no point in packaging a demo version.
Given that the freely downloadable tarball will NOT accept commercial
license keys, I need to package a commercial version of the tarball. I
have been told this should not be a problem for Intersystems (I
waiting for a definitive answer on this, though), because without a
license key the commercial tarball behaves like the free version:
single-user. Accessing the commercial tarball would not be a problem
either, because the company I work for licenses and resells Caché, so
we already have access to the commercial tarballs.
Questions
- Is this kind of software, with such a limited access to the binary
tarball, allowed to be in non-free?
- In case the answer to the former question is negative because of the
limited access relaying on me being available: if I would get (from
Intersystems) a username and password with access only to the
commercial tarballs, just for packaging purposes, and NO public
disclosure of username and password (i. e. only to one or two more
people, think something like the "Intersystems Caché packaging team"),
would it be acceptable?
Thank you.
PS: In case you are wondering why want to package such a restrictive
software, the answer is very simple: 1) Caché has a complex
installation, 2) We are deploying it to a lot of remote clients and
packaging it makes deployment and upgrades much much easier. I'm going
to package Caché no matter if it's going to non-free or not.
--
Pau Garcia i Quiles
http://www.elpauer.org
(Due to my workload, I may need 10 days to answer)
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