Re: Bug#639916: spread: license wackiness

[Hendrik Weimer <hendrik@enyo.de>]

Ken Arromdee <arromdee@rahul.net> writes:

> Unlike the original BSD 4 clause license this adds "or software that uses
> this software".
>
> If I interpret this broadly (all software that uses this software must
> display the sentence) it's non-free, since it imposes conditions on
> non-derived software that happens to use it.  Even if I interpret it
> narrowly (all advertising materials mentioning software that uses this
> software, must display the sentence) it imposes conditions on advertising
> for non-derived software.

But this does not break unrelated software as the code that uses it has
to be inserted deliberately, making it no longer unrelated. In a way,
this is a stronger restriction than the usual linking arguments pushed
by the FSF, but it's not totally crazy. In some jurisdictions even
copying a program into memory by an exec(3) call is an action for which
you need the permission by the rights holder.

Hendrik