On Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:44:20 +0200 Gianfranco Costamagna wrote: [...] > Hi Debian-Legal list :) Hello Gianfranco! > > forwarding the discussion from -devel here > > Basically, we thought OpenWatcom license wasn't DFSG for Debain standards, and now since > I would like to put Virtualbox back in main, I'm trying to see if some statement > clarifying the license is sufficient to make it dfsg. [...] I haven't found the time to re-read the whole detailed analysis of the license [1], but I think the issues are so many that a clarification should not be considered enough to solve them. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/07/msg00014.html It seems that nothing has changed in the last decade on the licensing front for OpenWatcom: if I am not mistaken, the compiler is still distributed under the terrible "Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0" [2]. [2] ftp://ftp.openwatcom.org/pub/license.txt Please note that the license has an auto-upgrade mechanism, as implemented in section 7: | 7. Versions of the License. Sybase may publish revised and/or new versions of | this License from time to time. Each version will be given a distinguishing | version number. Once Original Code has been published under a particular | version of this License, You may continue to use it under the terms of that | version. You may also choose to use such Original Code under the terms of any | subsequent version of this License published by Sybase. No one other than | Sybase has the right to modify the terms applicable to Covered Code created | under this License. As a consequence, it should be super-easy for Sybase to fix all the licensing issues in a flash, *provided* they are willing to do so. They just have to issue a statement where they declare that they elect the Expat/MIT license [3] to be the next version (2.0) of the "Sybase Open Watcom Public License": the OpenWatcom compiler would instantly become available under the Expat/MIT license. Or maybe they want to choose the Apache License Version 2.0 [4]... [3] http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt [4] https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt Of course, they have to be persuaded to do so, first. If anyone has good contacts inside Sybase, these could be leveraged to convince them to do this move. Good luck for the persuasion effort and thanks to anyone who is willing to help. Bye. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/ There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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