On Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 11:15:19PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Branden Robinson wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 09:59:36AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > > unfortunately treetool is non-free because there is neigther a
> > > license nor any upstream author available.
> >
> > Uh, if there's no license we have no business shipping it at all.
> >
> > Even in non-free.
> >
> > Please ask debian-legal if you need clarification of this.
> We have explicite permission:
> 
> Thanks for your interest in treetool.  While treetool is "free"; some
> portions are copyright the University of Illlinois.  I am currently working
> on getting permission from them to obtain clear rights to the package; in
> the meantime, I cannot place the program under the GNU license (which is my
> desire).  I do have permission to distribute the program, so you are
> welcome to include it under the "non-free" area of Debian Linux.
> 
> When these issues are cleared up, I will place the package under the GNU
> license and let you know.

Okay.  What you have is a license, then; it's just a very informal one.

Email from a person granting you permission to do things not ordinarily
permitted by copyright law is a "license", when that person has
appropriate legal standing to grant such permission.  Such
communications are just as valid as the GNU GPL or BSD licenses, if less
formal.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |    Optimists believe we live in the
Debian GNU/Linux                   |    best of all possible worlds.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]                 |    Pessimists are afraid the optimists
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |    are right.

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