Re: summary of software licenses in non-free

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 11:11:52AM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > molphy          very simple license says it is "free software". fails to have
> >                 an explicit clause allowing modification. clarification
> >                 would be good, but IMO there is no compelling reason why
> >                 this can't go in main.
> 
> Lack of permission to modify is itself a compelling reason.  In the
> absence of an explicit grant of permission, all rights are reserved (as
> the copyright file for this package says).  The use of the phrase "free
> software" in the copyright statement provides no protection to any of
> our users who, seeing that this package is in main, assume that they can
> safely modify it and redistribute the result.

Maybe contacting the author and asking him to choose a clearer licence
would be a good solution here.

> > mwavem          says license is GPL. why is this in non-free? does it contain
> >                 binary-only driver or something??
> 
> Relevant bug from the changelog is 192270.  The copyright file says GPL,
> but it contains DSP binaries that don't come with source (certainly a
> disputed topic).  AFAICT, the conclusion in that bug report was "hmm, we
> don't seem to have an explicit license for these binaries at all" --
> which would make this package non-distributable, not non-free.
> 
> > sgb             modified files must be renamed and clearly identified.  why is this in
> >                 non-free?
> 
> ISTR this license element came up for discussion in the context of the
> LaTeX license; I /thought/ the conclusion was that requiring changes to
> filenames in the source was ok, but that requiring changes to filenames
> in the binary package was not.  Debian-legal, please correct me if I'm
> wrong.
> 
> > sl-modem-daemon looks like BSD-style license with noxious advertising clause.
> >                 why is this in non-free?
> > sl-modem-source looks like BSD-style license with noxious advertising clause.
> >                 why is this in non-free?
> 
> Hmm, I can't find anything in the list archives or in the package
> history to explain why this is in non-free.  I agree that this appears
> to belong in main.

Maybe they contain or need binary firmware or something such ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther