Re: Name restriction and forced acknowledgement OK?
debian-devel@liska.ath.cx (Olе Streicher)
> Mark Weyer <mark@weyer-zuhause.de> writes:
> > On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:19:04AM +0100, Ole Streicher wrote:
> >> c. The name(s) of all routine(s) in your derived work shall not
> >> include the prefix "iau".
> > Non-free: It effectively forbids using a modified library as a drop-in
> > replacement for the original library.
>
> This is true. What they effectively want is that nobody refers f.e. to a
> function iauEpj2jd() that is not approved by the International
> Astronomical Union, so that they reach a kind of "uniformness"
> here. However, they are effective with that only for the licensees of
> the library; one could easily build a completely independent library
> with the same name.
Whatever good intentions they may have, they should not deny users the
freedoms to implement functions in different ways (iauEpj2jd_cached),
or to combine it with another library that includes a function called
iauque (for example).
If they want to assure people that iauEpj2jd is their iauEpj2jd, they
should probably do something like gpg-signing their source code, rather
than try to use copyright to stop other functions with the same name.
As noted above, it doesn't stop independent libraries.
> > It fails DFSG 3.
>
> Why? It just requires that they get a different name.
I would have said it fails DFSG 4. One rename is fine, but this
requires that everything is renamed, which is a practical pain in the
bum for no good effect, and tries to grab an infinite number of names.
> If it is really non-free: would a library, where I (as the packager)
> would change all prefixes from iau to IAU (as an example) be free in the
> dfsg sense? This change would allow anyone to adopt the source code and
> to write a drop-in replacement.
I'm not sure. Is the law case-sensitive? If so, HOW DID HARD-TO-READ
SHOUTY DISCLAIMERS EVER GET STARTED? ;-)
> * 4. In any published work or commercial products which includes
> * results achieved by using the SOFA software, you shall
> * acknowledge that the SOFA software was used in obtaining those
> * results.
This might fail DFSG 9 (must not contaminate other software) but
doesn't this actually exceed the power of copyright?
Here's a FAQ about whether the GNU GPL can be applied to program output:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
So I'm not sure that this is even a valid copyright licence. If not,
then we don't have enough freedoms to include the library at all.
> * By post: IAU SOFA Center
> * HM Nautical Almanac Office
> * UK Hydrographic Office
> * Admiralty Way, Taunton
> * Somerset, TA1 2DN
> * United Kingdom
I'm in Taunton on Wednesday... do they accept personal callers? ;-)
Regards,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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