Ben Finney writes ("Re: French gov open license"):
> More precisely, “pass DFSG” is not something we can ask of licenses.
> Rather, the DFSG are for evaluating a *work* proposed for entry to
> Debian.
>
> Until we have a work to examine, with a grant of license from the
> copyright holders (and holders of other monopolies) in that work, the
> question of DFSG doesn't even come up.
>
> So, the question will need to be asked about a work proposed for entry
> into Debian.
I think this is rather disingenuous. The most common reason for a work
being rejected is indeed probably that some part of it is not actually
licenced under the ostensible licence for the whole package.
But that doesn't mean that rejection for wrongnesses in the licence
itself don't occur. There are plenty of examples. It can make sense
to look at the licence and say "if the whole work was under this
licence, and there were no other problems, it would be OK".
I have read the licence PDF and it is a reasonable licence for open
data. But if used together with some program, it would need to be
analysed for compatibility with that program's licence.
Commonly, we would want to know if it was GPL3+-compatible. I think
it probably is. I don't see any clauses which are not restrictions
which are already in the GPL3 in other terms, so complying with GPL3
would also comply with this licence.
There is one possible exception, in that the licence requires
The re-use shall not mislead third parties or misrepresent the
content of the << Information >>, its source and its time of last
update.
"Misrepresent the content" is a bit vague. If challenged, I would
argue that this is the same as the GPL3's requirement for "appropriate
copyright notice" perhaps read together with the GPL3 requirement for
notices of modification.
Ian.
--
Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own.
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