[Debichem-devel] SHELX

[Michael Banck]

Dear Prof. Sheldrick,

On Fri, Jul 09, 2010 at 04:17:26PM +0200, George M. Sheldrick wrote:
> I have been distributing SHELX in source form since the early 1970's, long
> before Open Source took off. 

I understand; however, the term "Open Source" has been coined in the
1990's and has been given a rather precise meaning.

> Although I fully support the idea of Open Source, I prefer to
> distribute SHELX myself so that I get more feedback and retain a
> little control. My university also expects 'for-profit' users to pay a
> license fee so that I cover my costs (we do not make a profit).  

This unfortunately means that we will not be able to distribute your
code as part of the Debian system (which is preferred by you anyway as I
understand it).

Still, I would like to make two proposals to you which you might want to
consider (but feel free to ignore):

1. We could distribute SHELX-97 in the so-called "non-free" component of
our FTP servers; this would imply that we modify the build process of
your code in such a way that a Debian package (which are similar to
RPMs) can be produced (modifying the actual program code is usually not
needed).  It would be made clear (exactly how is to be determined) that
(i) only academic use is allowed, (ii) registration at your site as well
as (iii) proper citations are required; however, downloading the package
itself could not be technically restricted.

2. Alternatively, we could work on producing the necessary files and
scripts which enable your users to build Debian packages if they have
the required knowledge; this would mean your users receive the code from
you and the above mentioned Debian-specific modifications from us and
can then build a Debian package themselves.

> Since my procedure is a little different from what is now generally
> understood as 'Open Source', I always describe the program 'open
> source'.

As there are some restrictions on usage and distribution (and thereby
also on modification), using the term "Shared Source" would maybe be
more appropriate.  "Shared Source" denotes program code which has source
code available, but is distributed under a non open-source (as defined
by the Open Source Initiative, or the Free Software Foundation) license.


Best regards,

Michael Banck