Ludovico Cavedon <cavedon@debian.org> writes: > The statement does not explicitly state that modifications are > allowed, Yes. “may be used” is so vague as to be useless for these purposes, IMO. It certainly doesn't grant permission to redistribute modified versions of the work. > but just says that the code is "freely distributable". It is also self-contradictory; the “All rights reserved.” should IMO be removed from any license text, since some rights are explicitly *not* being reserved. > Moreover the upstream author of RawTherapee re-licensed the file under > GPL3 (keeping the above statement, but adding a GPL3 header). AFAIK he > cannot do that, but the file has to keep only its original license... > correct? Right. The license statement as you present it does not grant anyone permission to redistribute modified versions, nor to re-license the work to other recipients, both of which would be needed for that change to be legal. The apparent intent of the author would be well served by the widely-understood and wholly free-software Expat license terms <URL:http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>. As it stands, only the copyright holders in the work can make that change. -- \ “When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies | `\ and astound your friends.” —Mark Twain, _Following the Equator_ | _o__) | Ben Finney
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