Thomas Kahle posted on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 14:58:58 -0600 as excerpted: > I just added the license 'bertini' to the non-free group. Bertini is a > math software distributed in source form but with restriction on > redistribution (no fee is allowed, no modifications may be > redisitributed). The way I read clause 2, I think we are allowed to > distribute the source code on the mirrors. The ebuild is > sci-mathematics/bertini which I'll add soon.
[From the license] > 2. Conveying Verbatim Copies. > > You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you > receive it, in any medium, provided [... etc] > > You may not charge a fee for any copy that you convey, and you may not > offer support or warranty protection for a fee. I read clause 2 the same way you did. > 3. Conveying Modified Versions. > > You may modify the Program for your private use only. You may not > convey, in any manner, a modified version of the Program without written > consent of all Authors of the Program. Does this allow us to create and distribute (separate, as gentoo does) patches, or not? I'm unclear on that. Clearly those patches would be based on and derived from the covered work, but (once beyond uncopywritably trivial) remain their own copywritable work. As long as they're distributed as separate patches we /may/ be fine as we're not "conveying" a modified version per se, but I'm not sure how to interpret that "in any manner" phrase, and given that, I'd definitely be more comfortable with a qualified legal opinion, or at least getting foundation approval. Or will we not be patching (or sed-ing, etc) at all, with a warning to other devs in the ebuild to be sure? IOW, are we basically treating it as we would an ebuild for a proprietary binary, except here it does happen to be building from source, but with NO changes at all? If that's the case, then I see no problems with it. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
