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Re: Question on QuickFIX license



On Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:06:40 -0400 Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:

> [ I am not subscribed to debian-legal, please keep me in the CC; M-F-T
> set accordingly ]

Done.

> 
> I have filed an ITP for QuickFIX (c.f. #642268).  As I was looking over
> the license, I figured that it was just a standard BSD w/ advertising
> clause.  When I looked a little closer, I saw 5 clauses instead of 4,
> which looked like the advertising clause had been split into two parts.
> However, the final clause left me scratching my head (the complete
> license is at the end of my email):
> 
> 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "QuickFIX",
>    nor may "QuickFIX" appear in their name, without prior written
>    permission of quickfixengine.org

This seems to start as name-change clause (allowed by DFSG#4), but then
goes beyond and forbids an entire infinite class of possible names for
derivative works (that is to say: any name having "QuickFIX" as a
sub-string).

This is overreaching, IMO, and makes the clause non-free.

However, it seems that I am in a small minority of people who think so.
The PHP License (up to the current version 3.01) includes an almost
identical clause 4., and PHP is shipped in Debian main, nonetheless.
I am convinced that PHP is non-free, and repeatedly explained my
reasoning on debian-legal, but I failed to gain consensus on this
issue, unfortunately.
See for instance
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/11/msg00272.html

> 
> I am not really sure if this provision makes QuickFIX unsuitable for
> main.

I personally think it does, but many other people (including
ftp-masters, apparently) seem to disagree with me.

> Is the Debian package a "product derived from this software" in
> the sense meant by the license?
[...]

That's hard to say...



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