Kern Sibbald wrote: >> Hello debian-legal, >> >> I'm forwarding, with permission, parts of a message from Kern Sibbald, >> author of Bacula and its manual. The current manual, which has a >> license listed at http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/index.html, is not >> DFSG-free. However, Kern has indicated a willingness to consider other >> license arrangements. >> >> Kern's main concern (correct me if I'm wrong, Kern) is that he doesn't >> want someone to be able to publish and sell paper versions of the >> manual. >> > > Yes, this is correct, but with the nuance, that I would be very happy to > see the manual published in physical form provided there is an agreement > for a reasonable financial contribution to the project, which should take > into account normal royalties and how much work the publisher (or whoever > transforms it) has to do to get it in a publishable form. > > In my other email, I attempt to explain my reasoning behind this.
While this is an understandable viewpoint, and one that I can sympathize with, any license that would provide protection such as you describe would most definitely be in violation of the DFSG, and as such, not distributable by debian, at least in the main section (though possibly in non-free). I also wanted to clear something up. When you said "I consider this a really minor point that has virtually a zero probability of discriminating against someone." (in your other mail), I took it to mean that you felt Debian was accusing you of being discriminatory. While that it one test of the DFSG, it is not the only one. Even though the documentation's license is not discriminatory, it violates other core principles of the DFSG, those of allowing the user to sell the work, and to change the form it is in. > > > Best regards, Kern > > > Cheers! Benjamin
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