[Debichem-devel] InChI license

[Alex Mestiashvili]

On 05/30/2018 04:57 PM, Andrius Merkys wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> the IUPAC/InChI-Trust InChI Licence of InChI (https://www.inchi-trust.org) is possibly non-DFSG-compatible (https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2018/02/msg00026.html), thus the package might not be suitable for Debian. Nevertheless, the copies of InChI are in Debian already as embedded by packages openbabel and indigo: openbabel v2.3.2 (newest in unstable) has earlier version of the library which is licensed under LGPL, whereas indigo v1.1.12 carries the library with the IUPAC/InChI-Trust InChI Licence. I suggest either reconsidering this license, or eliminating it from Debian altogether.
> 
> Best,
> Andrius
> 

Hi Andrius,

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.

>From the official site:
https://iupac.org/who-we-are/divisions/division-details/inchi/

The InChITM program version 1.04 is free software developed under the
auspices of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
(IUPAC) and the InChI Trust. You can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the IUPAC-InChI Trust License (PDF). This is a more
permissive version of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1
that was applied to previous versions of the software.

Here are few mail threads regarding attempts to make the license more
permissive:

Initial request:

 https://sourceforge.net/p/inchi/mailman/message/25847235/

3 years later version 1.04 is released under modified LGPL which allows
static linking with non-free software:

 https://sourceforge.net/p/inchi/mailman/message/31895574/

Best regards,
Alex