concerning the non-free status of ngspice

[Charles Plessy]

Le Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 08:22:13PM +0300, budomaru a écrit :
> Hi, I noticed that ngspice (as well as tclspice) is in the non-free
> section of the repositories. I downloaded ngspice23 and it doesn't seem
> at all incompatible with the Debian definition of free software, unless
> the fact that its essentially under multiple free software licenses or
> that part of it is under the public domain hurts its status as free
> software.
> 
> I would like to know why it's in that section.

Dear Budomary,

it seems that the subject has been discussed earlier on the debian-legal list:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00378.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00244.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/msg00001.html

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan