Peter,
Thanks for message. I've forwarded your message to ilisp-devel for
their consideration as well as debian-legal. ILISP has been an
important part of Lisp development for many years, so it is essential
to clarify the issue completely.
Of course, I think it is the hope of all that ILISP's license can
become DSFG compliant.
--
Kevin Rosenberg | .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux **
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Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> Package: ilisp
> Version: 5.11.1-7
> Severity: serious
>
> ilisp is not licensed under the GPL. It seems to be close to a free
> license. Unless I missed something, the only obstacle I saw is:
>
> o No fees or compensation are charged for use, copies, or
> access to this software. You may charge a nominal
> distribution fee for the physical act of transferring a
> copy, but you may not charge for the program itself.
>
> The problems as I see them:
>
> - The package bundles GPLed files such as comint-v18.el and others for the
> obvious purpose of loading them.
>
> - The package makes use of many Emacs libraries. e.g.:
> (require 'comint)
> (require 'cl)
> (require 'imenu)
>
> These libraries are not LGPL'ed. They are GPL'ed. Therefore if you use
> them you have to have a GPL-compatible license.
>
> The copyright file even says:
>
> "ILISP if freely redistributable. Eventually it may become part of GNU
> Emacs and it will in that case comply with the GPL."
>
> Sorry, it must comply with the GPL now as it makes extensive use of GPL
> code.
>
> Changing licenses won't be easy given the number of author that must be
> contacted. I wish them luck.
