On Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 08:18:29PM +1300, Chris K. Young wrote:
> Quoted from Adam McKenna [15 Nov 2000]:
> > On Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 01:14:15PM +1300, Chris K. Young wrote:
> > > ``The [licence] must
> > > explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source
> ^^^^^^^^^^
> > > code.''.
> >
> > qmail conforms loosely to the OSD, there is a footnote to section 4 that
> > (ambiguously) states that licenses that allow third party distribution of
> > patches conform.
>
> Allowing patches is necessary, but it's not sufficient. Debian's Free
> Software Guidelines has a similar clause, and I see no other clause
> that DJB's licence conflicts with. If I go by your statement, why is
> qmail listed under the non-free section?
That's why it conforms loosely. It only violates one part, and the rationale
for that part explains why an author would want to make his license that way.
I can't speak for the strictness of the Debian project because I am not a
part of it, but it has been my experience that it doesn't take much of an
infracton of the OSD (which was originally the DFSG) to get exiled to
non-free.
> > The main problem is that qmail doesn't really have a
> > "license" that ships with it. All people have to go on is public remarks
> > made by Dan, http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html
>
> I say that dist.html should be considered authoritative. There are
> references in the qmail and djbdns documentation that contain the
> URL to their respective pages.
That's what you say. But there isn't a definitive license (i.e. LICENSE or
COPYING) in the qmail distribution that explains those rights -- some web
page could be altered or taken down at any time, leaving users without any
rights whatsoever.
--Adam
--
Adam McKenna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | "No matter how much it changes,
http://flounder.net/publickey.html | technology's just a bunch of wires
GPG: 17A4 11F7 5E7E C2E7 08AA | connected to a bunch of other wires."
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