On Thursday 15 June 2006 21:53, Michael Poole wrote: > George Danchev writes: > > Hello -legal, > > > > I'm currently packaging sofia-sip.org SIP User Agent library which is > > licensed under LGPL [1]. There is also a large file populated with > > several copyrights [2] related to the code as used and distributed by the > > some of the library files. I did not spot any brutal non-DFSG issues, but > > since it is large and complex I'd like to read some opinions from any > > sharp eyed criticists. However I'm a little bit puzzled by the > > "Restricted Rights" as mentioned within the paragraph pasted below [3] > > when it comes to GOVERNMENT USE and DoD usages ? > > That kind of clause is generally used with proprietary COTS software > to make it clear that the government did not pay for the development > of the software and does not get "Unlimited rights" to it per > 252.227-7013(b)(1). > > For example, when a project enters a new phase and a different > contractor wins the phase than who won the previous phase, the > government can give copies of "Unlimited rights" works to the new > contract winner. This helps the government get a little more mileage > from its money and alleviates contractor "lock-in" for the life of a > project. > > I suspect the reason to include it in open source software is similar, > ensuring that copyleft licenses keep effect when the government passes > a copy of the covered software to another party. You would probably > have to talk to the license writer's legal counsel to be 100% sure.
Michael, Thanks for you clarifications. In fact there is similar jurisdical norm in my country also I was not aware of till that moment. I believe that the reason to have that in Sofia-SIP's libsofia-sip-ua/su/strtoull.c is that it comes that way from the original contributors like University of California and Sun Microsystems. Whom legal writer counsel do you suggest to talk to ? UCB & Sun's or the Sofia-SIP upstream which code is licensed under LGPL ? I don't believe that that clause makes it non-free as of DFSG, but if you think otherwise, please express your points. Another source of pain could be linking Sofia-SIP with OpenSSL (which is optional by nice to have it there) and as suggested by Mark [1] it is safe to have so called OpenSSL_exception [2]. So the question is - is it fine to link LGPL (not GPL'ed) code with OpenSSL licensed code ? Otherwise I believe we can have that OpenSSL exception with no worries. [1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-voip-maintainers/2006-June/005018.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSL_exception -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 <people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu> fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]