On Sun, Sep 24, 2006 at 12:20:59PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> Francesco Paolo Lovergine wrote:
>
> > Background:
> >
> > ECW is a prioprietary (patented) compressed image format quite used in
> > GIS applications. Ermapper recently released its SDK under a multi-license
> > here included.
> > It would be nice distributing under non-free at least some programs with
> > ecw support enabled (mainly gdal which is X/MIT licensed, other programs
> > could use gdal support to read/write ECW files, in some cases they are
> > GPL). Both free and public licenses are quite complicated...
>
> Good grief. Brain-bleed.
>
> The "interesting" clause in the "Public" license is this one:
>
> "This license applies to any use of the Software Product solely intended to
> develop or be distributed with products that are licensed under a license
> similar to a General Public License ("GPL") and at no charge to the
> public."
>
> I suppose that distributing it in Debian's non-free archive is "solely
> indended to... be distributed with" products licensed under the GPL, so the
> license applies. I think. (If the license doesn't apply, obviously the
> license is not usable for non-free.)
>
> The text of the license appears to be OK for non-free.
> (It's not OK for main because of (1)(b)(iii), (1)(e)(iii), (4), and because
> the EULA claims to apply to things not covered by copyright,
> like "using" the software.)
>
> It looks like the "Free" license may be unusable, because of (2)(iv):
> (iv) you do not permit further redistribution of the REDISTRIBUTABLE
> COMPONENTS by your end-user customers
>
> Which I think pretty much makes it impossible for Debian's mirror network.
>
So I wonder if a gdal-nonfree (MIT license) with ecw-enabled linking
enabled can be distributed at all... That's the basis for any other
program, e.g. grass (GPL) or mapserver (MIT)...
--
Francesco P. Lovergine
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