Re: meaning license statement
On Mon, 2012-06-04 at 11:05 +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Gerber van der Graaf <gerber.vdgraaf@gmail.com> [120603 23:18]:
> > I am building debian packages of FreeFOAM and come across the following
> > license statement in
>
> It is no license statement but a copyright statement. To distribute it
> you need a license statement. (And to distribute in Debian a free enough
> license statement).
>
> > * All Rights Reserved.
>
> That's just magic words from the past. Practically everywhere they have
> no meaning, since the time when even the US as one of the last countries
> introduced automatically granted copyright.
>
> > * Restricted Rights Legend
> > *
> > * Use, duplication, or disclosure of this
> > * software and its documentation by the
> > * Government is subject to restrictions as
> > * set forth in subdivision [(b)(3)(ii)] of
> > * the Rights in Technical Data and Computer
> > * Software clause at 52.227-7013.
>
> I think that references some US government acquisition
> guidelines. I've no idea which clause this numbers
> are refering too, but I guess means something like
> "Hey US government, I sold you a license to use this
> stuff, not a license to sublicense to other people".
>
> Anyway, reading this as plan English language, it says
> "Use [...] by the Government is subject [...]".
> It's "the" Government (with upper case G), so I'd say
> it only means the US government.
> So it has no meaning to anyone else and for the US
> government it is about rules set by thatself, so this
> should not not be a problem for Debian at all.
>
> (But repeating myself: you still need a license for this
> file. Nothing in there restricts you more than it is
> restricted anyway AFAUI. But even for a file without
> all this legaleese you need a license grant.)
>
> > Can anybody tell me what this statement means? Is it legal to copy it
> > and to include it in the package, or should it be removed?
>
> What do you mean with "removed" exactly? The statement itself
> is of course not to be removed from the file. For the file itself
> you need a license grant, just like for any other file you want to
> copy and distribute. Without that you cannot.
I mean to remove the entire file, not the statement from the file. This
will probably imply that an entire program will have to be removed as it
cannot be build without this file.
Gerber
>
> Bernhard R. Link
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