Hi Ian,
Again, apologies for the delay. So would it work for you if the NTRU
license explicitly said that Debian distributions, downstreams, and users
may use and modify the software and redistribute as part of a Debian
distribution?
Cheers,
William
On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Ian Jackson <
ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> William Whyte writes ("Re: Questions about libntru license/ntru patent
> status"):
> > Sorry for having let this drift for so long. Way back at the start
> > of the discussion, as we got into the discussion of the FOSS
> > Exception, there seems to have been an assumption that Tor would
> > depend on that FOSS Exception to use NTRU. In fact, our plan was to
> > make a Tor-specific carveout along the lines of:
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
> > "The NTRU source code and patents can be freely used and distributed
> > when used as part of the quantum-safe-ntor protocol as specified in [doc
> > ref] and its successor documents designated as such by the Tor Project."
>
> I'm sorry to say that I don't think Debian would want to rely on such
> a permission.
>
> The reason is that it depends on the code actually implementing the
> specified protocol. But, we want our downstreams and users to be able
> to modify the software - including, to make it speak a different
> protocol.
>
> Debian is looking for a licence that would work for Debian and all our
> derivative distributions, downstreams, and users, which would allow
> all of us to use and modify the software.
>
> On the other hand Debian does not need a licence that works if some
> other library, besides the NTRU library, is used to implement the
> algorithms.
>
> So I think the approach of a licence attached to the source code is
> much more likely to be helpful. If I remember the previous
> discussion, that licence was very close to suitable, with some
> problems in the wording of the `FOSS exception' (ie, the exception to
> permit use with non-GPL licences).
>
> As you quote in your email I suggested a wording based on a GPL
> Additional Permission. I think that is what your `FOSS exception' was
> trying to do. There are many ways of doing something like that. I
> hope you will adopt something suitable - since I think our goals are
> fairly well aligned.
>
> Thanks,
> Ian.
>
