Dear Mr. Koch and Dr. Treindl, First of all let me thank you for your Swiss Ephemeris software. I have found it to be very useful in the calculation of Hindu Calendars. I am writing to you because I am one of the volunteer maintainers of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system (http://www.debian.org/) and I would like to package your software for inclusion therein.
Debian has stringent guidelines for the kind of software we include (http://www.debian.org/social_contract#dfsg) The Debian Free Software Guidelines are the basis of the Open Source Definition and are widely regarded as the gold standard of Free/Open Source software. While the Swiss Ephemeris Public License seems to meet our requirements, there are a few places which are a little unclear and we would appreciate it very much if you could provide clarifications. "without any charge beyond the costs of data transfer." Did you mean this to prohibit for-profit distribution? "This license file and the copyright notices in the source files are the only places where the author's names may legally appear without specific prior written permission." Is the intent of this clause to stop the use of your names as endorsements of derived software or may they truly not be used in any place whatsoever? "You may copy and distribute the SE provided that the entire package is distributed, including this License." Does "entire" mean the entire pre-modification version, or entire *after* it has been modified ? What if the modifications were so extensive that there isn't much of the original Swiss Ephemeris code left? "If you do not meet the requirements in the SEPL, for example if - you develop and distribute software which is sold for a fee higher than a reasonable copy charge - or/and you develop and distribute software which is not published under an Open Source or equivalent license you must purchase the Swiss Ephemeris Professional Edition under the Swiss Ephemeris Professional License." This part of the preamble seems to contradict the language in the license itself. Is it permitted to include software which is SEPL licensed along with other software which does not qualify? (i.e. on a CD of non-free software.) Do you consider the preamble to be a normative interpretation of the license terms? Thankyou in advance for your response and please maintain the cc to debian-legal. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
