[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#435214: Bug#435214: octave-sp: license is neither GPL-compatible nor DFSG-free
* Steven G. Johnson <stevenj@fftw.org> [2007-07-30 00:09]:
> Package: octave-sp
> Version: 1:2003-4
> Severity: serious
> Justification: Policy 2.2.1
>
> The copyright file lists the following:
>
> COPYRIGHT 1994 LIEVEN VANDENBERGHE AND STEPHEN BOYD
> Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for
> any purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire
> notice is included in all copies of any software which is or includes
> a copy or modification of this software and in all copies of the
> supporting documentation for such software.
>
> Notice that it only grants permission to use/copy/modify "without fee".
> Thus, this software cannot be distributed commercially and hence
> violates the DFSG. (Probably the authors intended "without fee" to
> apply to the permission, not as a condition on distribution etc., but
> unfortunately that does not follow unambiguously from a literal
> reading.)
>
> However, I happen to know Stephen Boyd personally (he is a Stanford
> professor), and he is a big free-software and GNU/Linux proponent who
> would doubtless be happy to clarify the license terms (or just switch to
> the standard MIT/X11 license language) if contacted.
I think that you are right: the sentence in the COPYRIGHT file is ambiguous
and must be clarified. However, before contacting the upstream author, I
would like to know whether this package works with Octave 2.9. Does anyone
know? I have never used the semidef-oct package myself...
--
Rafael
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