Re: Is NPL DFSG complient or not?
Martin Schulze wrote:
> If the NPL is DFSG complient, which I think it is according to my memories,
> it should be listed in the DFSG/SC.
It is intended to be DFSG compliant, but I don't know if Netscape succeeded
at that. Frankly, the license is too complicated for me.
Whether or not it is, I would not want to recommend it as an example
of a DFSG-free license. Its requirements for distributing source code
are just too icky, far worse than those of the GPL.
This is the paragraph that worries me:
3.2. Availability of Source Code.
Any Modification which You create or to which You contribute must be
made available in Source Code form under the terms of this License
either on the same media as an Executable version or via an accepted
Electronic Distribution Mechanism to anyone to whom you made an
Executable version available; and if made available via Electronic
Distribution Mechanism, must remain available for at least twelve (12)
months after the date it initially became available, or at least six
(6) months after a subsequent version of that particular Modification
has been made available to such recipients. You are responsible for
ensuring that the Source Code version remains available even if the
Electronic Distribution Mechanism is maintained by a third party.
This means that if we distribute modified versions of an NPL'd
program, we're going to have to keep source packages around long after
we have replaced the binaries with new versions. We have no mechanism
in place for this.
In addition, this requirement is placed on the maintainer, who must be
prepared to fulfill it even if something happens to the Debian project.
Richard Braakman
P.S. You can find a copy at <http://www.mozilla.org/NPL/NPL-1.0.html>
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