On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 12:51:24PM +0200, Magnus Ekdahl wrote:
> The program has a nonstandard licence , but as far as I can tell its in
> accordance with the DFSG.
>
> ================================================================
> Copyright Notice
> Copyright (C) 1998-2001 by Joe Linoff (www.joelinoff.com/ccdoc)
>
> This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
> without WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
>
> Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute altered copies
> of this software provided that the copyright notice and this
> permission notice are preserved, that the distributor grants the
> recipent permission for further distribution as permitted by this
> notice and that the origin of the software is represented correctly.
>
> Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
> Please report bugs to http://www.joelinoff.com/ccdoc
> ================================================================
This license's intentions are clearly DFSG-free, but I think it leaves a
couple of things unclear.
* Permission to distribute UNmodified copies of the software is not
granted. This is the only potential DFSG problem I can see.
* I'm not sure what is meant by "provided...that the distributor grants
the recipient permission for further distribution as permitted by this
notice". It almost sounds like a copyleft. If every distributor has
to license the altered copies under these same terms, it is. If every
distributor simply has to preserve the original copyright notice and
license terms, but has permission to withhold permission for
sub-licensees to make or distribute copies (modified or not), then it is
not a copyleft. Either intention is DFSG-free.
In the event that the author does not intend to be using a copyleft, I
suggest that he use the MIT/X11 license instead, which is short, sweet,
and very close in form to the license he is using:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE
FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.
If the author does intend to be employing a copyleft, I wonder just for
the sake of intellectual curiosity why he didn't use the GNU GPL.
--
G. Branden Robinson | The noble soul has reverence for
Debian GNU/Linux | itself.
branden@debian.org | -- Friedrich Nietzsche
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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