On Tue, 2009-06-09 at 02:22 -0400, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote: > What is the proper way to solve this? Shouldn't the files contain > a FSF copyright line? And shouldn't future contributions, owned by > the FSF, be GPLv3+ rather than BSD licensed? For example, see > patch below that just adds a GPLv3 template at the top. > > All contributions to inetutils are licensed under the GPL (latest > version), and copyrighted by the FSF. This is a simple mistake on our > part that we forgot to add the relevant notice to this particular > file. > > If you look at commands.c, then you will notice that the copyright > notice comes _after_ the modified BSD license notice, it should really > come before. Nothing for you to worry if you don't feel inclined to > fix it though. > > +++ auth.c 2009-06-09 07:03:08.000000000 +0200 > + Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > > All years that inetutils was modified should be listed here since the > file was introduced. > > So, > > Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 2003, 2004, 2005 > 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > > Since we added the file in 1997 from BSD4.4-Lite, and we have done > changes in inetutils each year since then. > > > I noticed that auth.c contains a MIT license, which seems to have a > annoying clause, > > ... WITHIN THAT CONSTRAINT, permission to use, copy, modify, and > distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and > [without fee] is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright ... > > `without fee', seems to mean that commercial distribution is not > allowed, and thus making it incompatible with the GPL, and non-free as > well. Do people agree with this reading? If so, we must rewrite, or > remove these parts of inetutils. > > Are you sure it doesn't mean "no fee is required to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose"? I think it's disclaiming any royalties that might be implicitly required.
IANAL, of course.
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