Hi David, Thanks for all your work on GramAlign! We (the Debian Med team - CC'ed in this email) actually were willing to package GramAlign inside Debian, so that folks using Debian or derivatives could simply: "$sudo apt-get install gramalign" And simply use the gramalign without having to compile it themselves However, there's a problem with its current license to get to the archive "" This program is freely available for academic use, without any warranty. Commercial distribution of this program, in whole or in part, requires prior agreement with the authors. "" This actually ends up going against the Debian Free software Guidelines[1] (point no. 6 - The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research), and makes it harder (if not impossible) to package and vendor this software in the archive. Could you please modify the license and allow "everyone" to freely copy, modify, and distribute the software? Or make it free software for everyone? Or even better use a free software in parcticular DFSG compatible license[2]? Please do let us know. PS: The page on biounl (http://bioinfo.unl.edu/) shows GramAlign, but the contact email is surprisingly hidden (http://bioinfo.unl.edu/contact.php) I found your @unl.edu email from the README of gralalign, and Steffen Moeller <moeller@debian.org> had mailed you, but it bounced back. I found your @chem.tamu.edu email on orchid, and contacting you here - hope that is fine. Also, _just in case_ if you aren't maintaining GramAlign right now, and know someone who is right now, and can you point us there? That'd be really helpful [1]: https://www.debian.org/social_contract (scroll downwards to see DFSG) [2]: https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses Thanks and regards, Nilesh
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