Re: Request for comment on license file
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Hello!
Sorry for the delay and thank you very much for your efforts.
Am 2014-02-15 00:03, schrieb Francesco Poli:
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2014 04:39:45 +1100 Ben Finney wrote:
>
>> Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
>>
>>> 3. Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by
>>> information on how to obtain complete source code for TORQUE
>>> and any modifications and/or additions to TORQUE. The source
>>> code must either be included in the distribution or be
>>> available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a
>>> nominal fee, and all modifications and additions to the
>>> Software must be freely redistributable by any party (including
>>> Licensor) without restriction.
>>
>> I missed this clause. This appears to be a custom-written attempt
>> to turn a BSD-style license into a copyleft. The effectiveness of
>> this is unknown until it's been examined properly by a copyright
>> lawyer.
>
> Hello Ben, thanks for analyzing this license (again).
>
> I don't know whether this clause can be really called an attempt
> to implement a copyleft. It seems to impose that all modifications
> and additions be licensed under all-permissive terms. In other
> words, it seems to force modifiers to grant far more permissions
> over their modifications than what is granted by the original
> authors over the original work.
>
> I think this fails to meet (the second part of) DFSG#3.
>
Just to understand this right:
"... and all modifications and
additions to the Software must be freely redistributable by any
party (including Licensor) without restriction. "
Do you think it violates DFSG#3 because it "overrides" the "... under
the same terms as the license of the original software."(DFSG) by
requiring "redistributability without restriction"?
> Moreover, since the Torque is a derivative work of OpenPBS v2.3,
> the license of which included a similar clause, it seems to me
> that distributing Torque violates the license of OpenPBS v2.3.
> Unless all the parts of Torque that differs from OpenPBS v2.3 are
> licensed under all-permissive terms, which does not seem to be the
> case...
>
> Frankly speaking I cannot understand how Torque managed to be
> accepted in Debian main... For more details, please re-read the
> short thread where this issue was discussed last time:
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2012/01/msg00030.html
>
>>
>> Far better would be for the copyright holder to license this work
>> under well-known license terms understood to be an effective
>> copyleft, like the GNU GPL
>> <URL:https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
>
> I agree with your recommendation: the GNU GPL is a far better
> choice, whenever a copyleft license is desired. My personal
> preference goes to the GNU GPL v2:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
>
> I hope this helps to solve this licensing mess once and for all.
>
>
Well, actually not, because now i still don't know if it is OK to
package Torque 4.2.6.1 for Debian. I agree, that if Torque would be
under GPL, it would be much easier to package it for Debian(and we
won't have this thread) But there are several different license models
used for software already packaged , so it's more the question of
finding the border between "non GPL but DFSG compliant" and "not DFSG
compliant at all". So maybe someone could give me some tips how to
continue to work on this issue?
Thanks,
Simon
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