[Pkg-pascal-devel] DFSG-ness of two

[Francesco Poli]

On Fri, 29 May 2015 14:12:51 +0200 Paul Gevers wrote:

> Hi Debian legal,

Hello Paul,
thanks for taking these freeness issues seriously.

> 
> I am investigating two files in the Lazarus source with the following
> two licenses. I am wondering what you make of this
[...]
> First:
[...]

My own personal opinion is that the first license is really borderline,
although it could be considered to barely comply with the DFSG.

[...]
> - 3. You may not have any income from distributing this source
> -    (or altered version of it) to other developers. When You
> -    use this product in a comercial package, the source may
> -    not be charged seperatly.

This clause is really annoying, but it seems to allow the file to be
sold as part of a commercial package. Hence, it could perhaps be
considered to meet DFSG#1.

Anyway, this first license should really be avoided: I recommend you to
get in touch with the copyright owner of this first file and try to
persuade him to re-license the file under widely used and clearly
DFSG-free terms.
I would suggest him to re-license under the zlib license [1], which is
the closest DFSG-free license I am aware of.

[1] http://www.zlib.net/zlib_license.html

> 
> Second:
> Windows XP Theme Manager is freeware. You may freely use it in any
> software, including commercial software, provided you accept the
> following conditions:
> 1) The software may not be included into component collections and
> similar compilations which are sold. If you want to distribute this
> software for money then contact me first and ask for my permission.
[...]

The second license appears to be clearly non-free: it fails to
explicitly grant permission to copy, redistribute, and modify (it just
talks about "using", which is a vague term) and it absolutely forbids
anyone to sell aggregate software distributions containing the file,
thus failing to meet DFSG#1.

I recommend you to get in touch with the copyright owner of this second
file and try to persuade him to re-license the file under DFSG-free
terms, such as, for instance, the Expat license [2].

[2] http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt


I hope this helps.
Bye.


-- 
 http://www.inventati.org/frx/
 There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82  3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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