On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 07:20:31PM +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote: > If anyone's got a free moment or two, could they pass opinion on the > following as a licence. I'm especially interested in how it'd interact > with other licences, esp. the GPL. > > # This work may be modified and distributed under any terms, licence > # or agreement that meets all the conditions set out in the > # Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) as published at > # <URL: http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines>. > # > # At all times the original copyright message(s) and this freedom of > # licence must be preserved, or where only a part of this work is > # distributed, copied into that part to apply only to that part.
That's a GPL-incompatible variant on the MIT/X11 license, in disguise. Free-est license wins from a practical viewpoint, so the "do whatever you want" MIT/X11 license is appropriate - except for this clause: > # At all times ... this freedom of > # licence must be preserved Which is an additional restriction over the GPL, and is therefore not compatible with it. In addition, the DFSG is hugely subject to interpretation - it was never designed for use in this fashion - and so the license should be considered ambiguous in every case which has engendered debate on this list (and probably some others too). I think it's a pretty silly license. I would ask upstream to change to a simple MIT/X11. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
pgp0gbjBpPJSO.pgp
Description: PGP signature
