Re: mmm and ocamltk80 (Re: Debian sponsor)
Hi.
In article <[🔎] 199910091227.VAA24621@mail.geocities.co.jp>
Masayuki Hatta <masayuki-h@geocities.co.jp> writes:
> 1) License problem
>
> I thought the INRIA license is compliant with DFSG, but some people in -legal@org
> said the license is not clear enough to ensure the creation of binaries from
> modified source. I've sent an e-mail to INRIA to ask them about it, but don't get
> any reply yet...
I check http://pauillac.inria.fr/~rouaix/mmm/, and there are:
Free
This isn't exactly "free software" in the GNU sense, nevertheless:
the source is available for free
(binary versions are available for some platforms)
anyone can use MMM for free
anyone can freely redistribute unmodified source and binary distributions of MMM
Check the LICENSE for full details.
They wrote "This is not (exactly) free", so mmm is non-free for Debian, I think.
Well, I wish if it were free, but currently the author seems to decide let it be
non-free.
the LICENSE http://pauillac.inria.fr/~rouaix/mmm/LICENSE.txt :
The user undertakes to distribute the software either as unmodified
source files, identical to those originally made public by INRIA, or as
executable binaries obtained by compiling the original source files.
Distribution of derivative works obtained by modifying the software or
integrating it in another software is allowed only if the distribution
consists of the unmodified, original source files for the software,
along with difference files (patches) to be applied by the user of the
derivative work.
As regards any other type of distribution, the user undertakes to
apply to obtain the express approval of INRIA.
This is non-free. people in -legal are right.
This allow the distribution of unmodified source, and the executable
binaries from that original source. But distribution of modified software
is allowed ONLY IF the distribution is in the form of unmodified original
source with patches. I think this prohibits the distribution of binaries
from the modified source.
We can distribute it as a "non-free" package if we have
the "express aproval of INRIA", but without that, we can not even
distribute it, since the debian package could not be
"obtained by compiling the original source files".
> Could you possibly ask them? I can't read or write in French, so I don't understand
> what they say at www.inria.fr(English page was not available at that time). the
> license seems to be translated from French, so the meaning might be different
> from the original one.
I just trace the French page, but the LICENSE of mmm seems written in English
nevertheless.
The only way we can go is to ask the author to change the license in order to
include his software as a main package of Debian. I don't know the author will
be interested though.
By the way, ocaml's LICENSE seems the similar one as I see from CVS tree:
"http://camlcvs.inria.fr/cgi-bin/cvsweb.out/ocaml/LICENSE?rev=1.12&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup";
Well, the license for B2D is at http://pauillac.inria.fr/cdrom/www/bl2d/copyright.htm,
which seems to have non-commercial term, but it is not the same one as mmm and ocaml.
And more, http://pauillac.inria.fr/cdrom/prog/unix/freefem/eng.htm said:
There is some on going work:
3D implementation: new solver, new mesh tools
Completely rewritten language
There will be some changes in the general policy for FreeFEM(GNU
Public License, GPL) and XGfem(Shareware or GPL; I don't know yet)
So, some software from INRIA will come with GPL. This is good sign.
(Current 3.4 has non-commercial term in it's license.)
Did you send the mail to the author of mmm, Francois.Rouaix@inria.fr,
or Jun.Furuse@inria.fr, who is the author of jmmml ? Maybe Furuse-san
can understand Japanese. And more, you should ask the author of caml,
Pierre.Weis@inria.fr, to change the license to match the requirement
from DFSG, since the mmm uses object Caml.
--
Taketoshi Sano: <sano@debian.org>,<sano@debian.or.jp>,<kgh12351@nifty.ne.jp>
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