Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
This is an automatic notification regarding your Bug report #296087: IMPORTANT: Microsoft EULA is NON-FREE and give MS specific rights!!, which was filed against the openoffice.org package. It has been closed by one of the developers, namely Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>. Their explanation is attached below. If this explanation is unsatisfactory and you have not received a better one in a separate message then please contact the developer, by replying to this email. Debian bug tracking system administrator (administrator, Debian Bugs database) Received: (at 296087-done) by bugs.debian.org; 20 Feb 2005 08:53:38 +0000From vorlon@debian.org Sun Feb 20 00:53:38 2005Return-path: <vorlon@debian.org>Received: from dsl093-039-086.pdx1.dsl.speakeasy.net (localhost.localdomain) [66.93.39.86] by spohr.debian.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 1 (Debian))id 1D2mqQ-0002zu-00; Sun, 20 Feb 2005 00:53:38 -0800 Received: by localhost.localdomain (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 871AF171D61; Sun, 20 Feb 2005 00:53:35 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 00:53:35 -0800 From: Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> To: 296087-done@bugs.debian.org Subject: Re: IMPORTANT: Microsoft EULA is NON-FREE and give MS specific rights!! Message-ID: <20050220085332.GA9510@mauritius.dodds.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="PNTmBPCT7hxwcZjr" Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040907i Delivered-To: 296087-done@bugs.debian.orgX-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02 (1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on spohr.debian.org X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-3.0 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=no version=2.60-bugs.debian.org_2005_01_02 X-Spam-Level:--PNTmBPCT7hxwcZjr Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printableI don't know if you europeans understand what that license means in U.S. language: it means they have rights to access all of your personal work on your computer systems and "have your ass" in any courtro=om=20situation simply because their libraries are on your system - even if you infact didn't know they were there (because you negleged to look for the license).Including a copy of this license text in the package does not give Microsoft any rights to the contents of your system.The President is from Texas (so gov workers now get Dell laptops). No coincidence: beleive me. Microsoft has their own judges and does an excellent job of "lobbying" our Congress.
yet I voted for him twice...
And remember, while taking clomipramine, you should stick to decaf.
Ha ha ha. No such luck. Still loaded with cafeine ;) Yes - that can cause too much typing... I feel I filed the report with the right tag: licensing is a strict debian policy issue. Wasn't trying to hype the level.
And certianly - while a fourth party list maker included "for .net" in the list could be guessed to mean only on MS - the license does say it applies to all readers.
It's real simple: since it's in error being there:
---> remove the EULA from license distributed by debian <---
---> or include an adjusting LICENSE.txt <-----
Anyway? How am I supposed to know whether the linux bin compiled needed
any of the .net headers to finish compiling? My bet is that it did and
that you are at least in part wrong in assuming it didn't.
And can I get the "open source" without downloading source code containing source code emitted by Microsoft compilers (with microsoft's headers at the top)? You can't distribute it in the "free" section if you can't download the source, right?
Anyway - it's Sun's perogative to put .net things in OpenOffice - not say so on the website (since that isn't binding): because they have agreements with MS. However - that doesn't mean linux can tag along.
If so what does that mean? It goes in the "non-free" section. Big deal. By definition it isn't really "open" or "free" since the license states in one of the parts, equivalently,
"free for educational use only"
Which isn't really free, is it? You did see that section, didn't you?
When I first saw .net I assumed what you said. But I think the whole
thing stinks and deserves closer inspection.
Third party? First party? A license is a license. A 3rd party .html isn't any weaker than a 1st party LICENCE.txt
Finally. You can't distribute MS's License without their approval - so even if it doesn't apply to linux the MS EULA shouldn't be there unless it specifically says it doesn't apply to linux in bin or src.
I hate to be wordy and meantion it. But I did see one of Sun's programmers say on GMU-TV "Yes - for the right price we'd sell software to Microsoft". And Sun has, often, recieved large sums of money from MS. Though I've allways trusted them and still wonder why Linux Torvalds was angry at them.
Thanks for looking ;) Your too typitive user, John D. Hendrickson johndhendrickson22124@yahoo.com jdh@hend.net P.S. And so why doesn't Samba (et al) include the MS EULA? Nope. I say if it doesn't belong there: delete it soon.After reading about all the [people] who were suprised when MS pulled a lawsuit on them you can just relax and say "oh - the label by the listmaker says for .net"?
I am still downloading the src to check about the true tyings of the EULA to the version which is compiled when target is linux. I hope you'll do the same.
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