On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:43:41 +0100 Josselin Mouette wrote: > Le mercredi 07 janvier 2009 à 23:19 +0100, Francesco Poli a écrit : > > > I think it would also be enough to obtain a permission from the authors > > > to call Debian modified versions "Alice", as long as renaming it is easy > > > otherwise. We have allowed such things in the past. > > > > I don't think the situation is crystal clear. > > I don’t think either, but you are really nitpicking too much. Maybe... :) > So you > can’t call a derived version FreeAlice nor Alice? Who cares? *I* care, as I think the freedom to create and distribute derivative works is a very important one (DFSG#3). Restricting the naming of derivative works is allowed by DFSG#4 (as a compromise!) in a somewhat narrow way: it is considered acceptable when the license forbids derivatives to carry the same name or version number as the original work. Forbidding an entire infinite set of names (any name having "Alice" as a substring) goes well beyond what is considered acceptable by DFSG#4, actually infinitely beyond... > The same > goes with trademarks of several packages we distribute. Default trademark rules (the ones you get *in your jurisdiction*, when there's a trademark and no explicit trademark license/policy) are possibly different, maybe stricter, or maybe more relaxed. But anyway, there *has* to be a trademark to begin with, in order for trademark laws to apply. I don't know whether "Alice" is a trademark or is eligible to become one. > > Luke, if you are in touch with upstream, I think you could recommend > them to remove this clause and replace it by a trademark policy on the > "Alice" name. It is more efficient and more flexible at the same time. Or even better, upstream could be recommended to completely remove clause 3. (and clause 4., while we are at it...). In summary, my recommendation is adopting the 2-clause BSD license, without any additional clause. Once again: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. -- On some search engines, searching for my nickname AND "nano-documents" may lead you to my website... ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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