[Debichem-devel] InChI license

[Daniel Leidert]

> Hi Alex,
> On 05/30/2018 07:47 PM, Alex Mestiashvili wrote:
>> My poor understanding is that IUPAC-InChI Trust License is not perfectly
>> worded LGPL which suppose to be more permissive then LGPL and thus is
>> DFSG compatible.
>
> good then. I'll see what I can do about packaging this library.

The main issue with this software is, that if you modify it, you must not
refer to the output as InChI (license item no. 15). This itself can break
unrelated software relying on the library output and it would require maybe
rather large changes as soon as you apply a patch to the source.

The second large issue is, that the InChi-FAQ itself says, that the
library ist not modifiable (even if the license itself says differently).

One should really talk to the InChi-Trust people to put the library back
under plain LGPL and find a different solution for whatever the problem is.
It is neither the first nor the only library playing a normative role or
implementing an algorithm.

I don't feel comfortable with this license and I fear, the FTP masters
won't be comfortable too.

https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html#interface
https://www.inchi-trust.org/technical-faq/#3.2
https://www.inchi-trust.org/download/104/LICENCE.pdf

Regards, Daniel