Hi, I would like to package the program molmol (Description: Display and analyze structures of biological macromolecules, ITP #199874) for Debian Systems. It has a license that clearly forbids its inclusion in Debian, but I hope it can be put in non-free.
The most problematic part is that the license requires explicit permission by the authors if modified versions should be distributed - and it has to be modified slightly just to make it policy-compliant. I have written e-mail to the author regarding this question (and not yet gotten an answer). However, it is not clear to me how this permission should look like and what rights it should include. I didn't find any conclusive statements in the debian-legal archives, and I don't know whether there are packages in non-free from which I could take a wording. I guess that permission to distribute would have to include permission to distribute further modified versions, like security fixes, ASAP without further contact to the authors. Permission for _anybody_ to redistribute it is not necessary for non-free, right? But, most importantly, who is "The Debian Project", which would be granted the permission, in this sense? Everybody who runs a server with a *.debian.org DNS name? Or are there more complete mirrors than these? Or are the administrators of mirrors not responsible at all, but only ftp-master? To whom would a written letter have to be addressed? Any hints would be appreciated, TIA, Frank -- Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
