[Debichem-devel] Copyright license from MMFF94 Parameter Files

[Ximin Luo]

Dear Tom Halgren and Simon Kearsley,

I'm trying to package Jmol for Debian. Jmol [1] is an open-source Java viewer for
chemical structures in 3D. Debian [2] is a open-source software distribution,
consisting of thousands of free and open-source software packages like Jmol that
are integrated consistently together into a full operating system.

"Free" in this context means roughly that the copyright holders of each package
(and its contents) have given the general public the right to distribute either
exact or modified derivative copies of their work, including the source code,
possibly with certain conditions attached. For more details see [3] [4].

As part of the standard Debian copyright auditing processes, I've noticed that
Jmol includes copies of the MMFF94 Parameter Files as well as the Validation
Suite. The original copies are from here:

1. ftp://ftp.wiley.com/public/journals/jcc/suppmat/17/490/MMFF-I_AppendixB.ascii
2. http://server.ccl.net/cca/data/MMFF94/

and they mention you two as the authors. (1) has a clear copyright notice
"Copyright (c) Merck and Co., Inc., 1994, 1995, 1996", and (2) has no notice.

Jmol's copies of these files are here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/jmol/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/Jmol/src/org/jmol/minimize/forcefield/data/
https://sourceforge.net/p/jmol/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/Jmol/src/org/jmol/minimize/forcefield/mmff/validate/

Jmol itself is distributed under the GNU LGPL 2.1 or later. For a summary see
[5] and details see [6].

I'm wondering if eithor of you could please clarify the copyright licensing
status of all of these files, and whether it is OK for Jmol to distribute them
as part of itself?

I've CCd Robert Hanson, the current main developer of Jmol. Please note that he
may not have been responsible for the original decision to include these files.
Also CCd are the Debian Med and DebiChem project mailing lists, to which are
subscribed some more people with an interest in seeing Jmol in Debian.

Thanks in advance,
Ximin

[1] https://sourceforge.net/p/jmol/
[2] https://www.debian.org/
[3] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License
[6] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.en.html

-- 
GPG: ed25519/56034877E1F87C35
GPG: rsa4096/1318EFAC5FBBDBCE
https://github.com/infinity0/pubkeys.git