@ 20/05/2004 10:46 : wrote Danilo Piazzalunga :
Hello,
Sorry if this is not quite in-topic for debian-legal. I run into
E4[1], a collection of Matlab functions, distributed under the GPL.
However, the software can be only downloaded as a zip file protected
by a password, which you can get only by contacting the authors: this
effectively equals to requiring registration of the software.
(me again)
I just received the password for the ZIP file. I opened it, and it was a
bunch of *.m files, all source, none seemed to be obfuscated, and all of
them except cssss.m (*) had headers copyrighting them *and* establishing
the GPL as the license. accompanying the *.m files, a single LICENSE.txt
file containing the complete text of the GPL, including the preamble and
the epilog "how to GPL your work".
(*) the cssss.m file appears to have the same effect as
$ perl -pi~ -e 's/SS_DVEE/SS_DVSS/g' *.m
;; so, if lack of individual attribution is a problem (!?) just yank it
off the sources, it's not referenced anywhere in the other *.m files OR
in the manual.
Every evidence on the table says to me this is DFSG-free. The
"registration" process is only to their own control. If you still have
doubts, contact the developers. The manual appears to be non-free.
MatLab, itself, seems to be non-free. So, even if debian packages this,
it should go into contrib.
--
br,M
