On Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:53:31 +0100 Josselin Mouette wrote: > Le mercredi 07 janvier 2009 à 09:25 -0500, Luke Faraone a écrit : > > Hi, I'm interested in packaging Alice (RFP: > > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=500648), but it's > > license <http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=license> has naming > > restrictions similar to Mozilla.
When asking debian-legal for a license analysis, please quote the full license text in the body of your message, so that it is archived for future reference. What follows is the license text quoted verbatim: | Copyright © 1999-2009, Carnegie Mellon University. All rights reserved. | | Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without | modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are | met: | | 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright | notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. | 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright | notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the | documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. | 3. Products derived from the software may not be called "Alice", nor | may "Alice" appear in their name, without prior written permission of | Carnegie Mellon University. | 4. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this | software must display the following acknowledgement: "This product | includes software developed by Carnegie Mellon University" | | DISCLAIMER: | THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS | OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF | MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND | NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE | LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION | OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION | WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. This license is not normally referred to as a "BSD license". It starts just as a 2-clause BSD license, but includes two additional clauses (clause 3. and clause 4.). Clause 4. is the so-called "obnoxious advertising clause" (OAC from here in after), also found in the 4-clause BSD license. The OAC is accepted by the Debian Project as DFSG-compliant, even though it's usually recommended against (in the sense that authors are strongly encouraged to avoid adopting licenses with the OAC). Clause 3. is what I could call a "super-name-change" clause. It starts as a name-change clause, but then goes beyond and forbids an entire class of names for derived works (any name having "Alice" as a substring). This is overreaching, IMO, and makes the clause non-free, because it goes beyond what is allowed (as a compromise!) by DFSG#4. Please note that an almost identical clause is found in the PHP license, and indeed I repeatedly stated my opinion that the PHP License (up to version 3.01), fails to meet the DFSG. However I failed to gain consensus on debian-legal about the problem: other people seem to disagree and/or don't seem to care much. See my analysis of the license at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/11/msg00272.html for further details. FTP-masters seem to accept PHP as DFSG-free (unfortunately). > > > > Would retitling the package "carol" or "wonderland" be sufficient to > > make the package DFSG-free? > > Yes, it’s otherwise an old-style BSD license. > > I think it would also be enough to obtain a permission from the authors > to call Debian modified versions "Alice", as long as renaming it is easy > otherwise. We have allowed such things in the past. I don't think the situation is crystal clear. The Debian Project is in the same waters with PHP: there's a package named "php5" which includes a (possibly) modified version of PHP. The modifications are at least the ones necessary to package PHP and integrate it with the Debian system, if any: package php5 may be considered a derived product of PHP, perhaps. Is calling it "php5" allowed by the PHP license? Someone could nitpick that "php" != "PHP": OK, in that case "alice" != "Alice"... Otherwise, someone could claim that package php5 *is* PHP, rather than a derived product, since the modifications are not enough to create a derived product (?!?). I am personally not much convinced, but anyway... Otherwise? In summary, the license could possibly be considered acceptable by FTP-masters (even though it should not, IMHO!!!), but it is not clear to me how the Debian Project can avoid violating the license itself, unless a different name is used for the package, as proposed... N.B.: the above is my own personal opinion and my usual disclaimers apply (IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP). -- On some search engines, searching for my nickname AND "nano-documents" may lead you to my website... ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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