hi Debian Legal, I would like to use the MUSIC cosmological initial conditions software
https://bitbucket.org/ohahn/music and potentially (no promises) ITP it as a Debian package. [Debian presently has a much older package with overlapping functionality to MUSIC: mpgrafic. I would prefer not to use MUSIC until/if it's free-licensed.] The problem is that the licence: https://bitbucket.org/ohahn/music/src/a2f902247a6e8ffb4cddd085f52b8a4024ad8b24/LICENSE i. has "All rights reserved", which sounds like a clear intention to state that anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden ii. does not allow modification iii. does not allow distribution [conditions on distribution are listed, but that could be interpreted to mean that *if* you obtain permission from the author to distribute, *then* this is a constraint/reminder about conditions on the private permission that you have obtained] iv. does not allow distribution of modified copies v. requires obligatory citation of the software and research paper On point v: the GPL forbids this: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#RequireCitation "No, this is not permitted under the terms of the GPL." On the other hand, the same GPL FAQ seems to imply that a citation requirement is legally invalid. Does it matter if a licence has a non-enforceable (illegal) requirement that people will generally follow voluntarily (and under academic ethics rather than legal obligation)? Or rather: would this be accepted under DFSG? Cheers Boud
