Hi Andreas, > 11) License checking > I was suggesting an ePetition to free Phylip and wrote a first draft > for it[6]
I put my name to this already and also fixed a couple of typos in the text. Since you said this is a draft I also made some changes - take them or revert them as you like... In the last paragraph you say it "would be helpful" to amend the license but really it is essential to do this in order to be in Debian as the license is clearly non-free. You don't mention that other programs borrow from the code but are still bound by the non-free clauses. To me this is the strongest point, that the Phylip authors probably did intend to share their code openly but in fact are using a non-standard license is causing real problems for other developers. Not to mention the whole revenue thing is probably meaningless because "generating revenue" can technically include winning academic grants or charging for Bio-Linux courses, both of which we do. And even if it was a meaningful clause it's probably unenforceable as a condition of redistribution since this is a restriction on usage ie. a EULA. Etc. etc.. I'm wondering how many other nearly-free things we'd like to free up, maybe not just in biology but science in general. The UCSC genome browser source springs to mind. Also SSAHA2 which is rendered closed-source by the incorporation of some UW cross_match code. If the petition got somewhat bigger we might even get some "big names" to sign it. But first things first. Cheers, TIM -- To Err is human. To Arrr is Pirate! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-med-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1328032031.4134.42.ca...@barsukas.nwl.ac.uk