Just had a reply from a Scilab author, and this is what I replied back. He gave me permission to post it here.
Peter ------- Forwarded Message From: Peter S Galbraith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Making Scilab free (as in speech) software In-reply-to: (Your message of Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:57:22 +0200.) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 09:24:37 -0400 Dr Scilab wrote: > you wrote> > > you wrote> > I hope you'll consider this email in the constructive spirit in > you wrote> > which I meant it. Scilab is your software and you are free to > you wrote> > choose whatever license you want. But if you meant it to be > you wrote> > free, I think it falls a little short of that. Please feel free > you wrote> > to ask for clarifications. I am not a lawyer, just a Debian > you wrote> > developer who would like to see scilab included in Debian > you wrote> > GNU/Linux's main archive. > you wrote> > > > Dear Peter, > > Thank for your interest in Scilab. We made an effort to > understand all these legal issues, but we were not capable of > really getting a hold on all the details. That is why we asked our > institute (Inria) to have a professional look at it. We told him what > we wanted (in layman terms) and gave him many examples of > free software licenses, he came up with what you have seen. I see. > We are stuck with it for now, but we can re-examine the issue > for the next release. Okay. I hope the time between releases isn't too long then. ;-) > Probably the mistake we made was not to > publish the proposed license ahead of time for people like you > to react to. I personally didn't see a contradiction between our current > license and Debian ; I see that I was wrong. Please feel free to contact me the next time if you wish, and I'll make sure to consult with others, or contact the debian-legal mailing list (debian-legal@lists.debian.org) with the proposed license text. It's actually not a mailing list of lawyers despite the name, but of (mostly) well-informed Debian developers. We'll try to help you make sure your license is free. > Anyway, in our mind there is no doubt that Scilab is > free for any usage. Our only concern is the integrity of the software; > we don't want to see forking which is the most effective way to break > a product. Keep in mind a few points: - The right to fork is a fundamental part of free software. - Forks almost never happen to software that is actively maintained. - The right to modify and redistribute modified versions is necessary to fix bugs, and in case you decide you no longer want to maintain the software (or get hit by a truck!). - The so-called patch clause can be used as a last resort to protect your work from gratuitous modifications. > We keep your remarks for the next time the license > issue comes up. > Thanks again. > > Dr Scilab Thanks for your reply. I hope to see scilab in the Debian distribution in the future then. May I forward your reply to the (public) debian-legal mailing list? Thanks, Peter Galbraith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ------- End of Forwarded Message