Re: cthugha (non-free) license
Me wrote: provide a last archive with another license. My question is: what keeps cthugha from being free? Thank you for your reply (and getting it from the archive and going through it). You nearly answered the q. that i had on mind: What is the quickest, most painless way (for him) to get a quite unresponsive ex-upstream maintainer to provide a free license? If he is moving on, just ask him to public domain it just as the people did before him. Thanks. Now for the details: The remainder of the source (not already public domain, no explicit author's copyright notice) is Copyright 1995-97 by Harald Deischinger. The source code may be copied freely and may be used in other I think this may remain? While this has to be changed: programs under the following conditions: It may not be used in a commercial program without prior permission. Please credit the author (in general, credit Cthugha, Torps Productions and Harald Deischinger) as the source of the code. What about the begging for credits? I never understood why this is not in DFSG 4.). Is that against 9.? It is also done in the hello package. However, i find it nearly impossible for a non-native english speaker to completely understand even the DFSG. I try often, but heading and content of each paragraph appear to me to have 'nothing in common'. (What does 7. mean need for execution of an additional license'. I execute programs for a long time, but admit i never got this sentence.) As much as i try, i have sometimes difficulties following even a german lawyer. I never restricted my own software and, honestly, i feel quite secure with my compiler and without your help, i would rather rewrite this program from scratch before i'd start to sort out all that legal stuff. That's why i was asking in the first place. So: Thanks for your help - i'm afraid i will need a little more (decrescendo to whispering ... ;) Greetings, martin
Re: RFC about copyrights and right package section for W3C docs.
[cc and reply-to more appropriate list] Richard Atterer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 10:42:59AM +0200, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote: [doc-html-w3] That package is in non-free. IIRC the issue is that you can't modify the standards. Which is somewhat understandable, but still relegates them to non-free. Hm, but the Internet RFCs are in main and they don't allow unlimited modification, either: [...] So, should the RFCs go in non-free as well? Probably. See bug#92810, which probably needs more attention. AIUI, the GNU Open Publication License also allows authors to restrict the right of making modifications to parts of the documentation. Is that non-free, too??? There is no such thing. If you meant the GNU Free Documentation License, that one allows non-modification clauses only for non-topical chapters. So I think it is ok with DFSG. The documentation of the info and texinfo packages are placed under GNU FDL, and both are in main. Probably affects other packages as well. There's also the Open Publication License (not from GNU) which I am less familiar with. -- Robbe signature.ng Description: PGP signature
Re: RFC about copyrights and right package section for W3C docs.
On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 08:55:45PM +0200, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote: So, should the RFCs go in non-free as well? Probably. See bug#92810, which probably needs more attention. AIUI, the GNU Open Publication License also allows authors to restrict the right of making modifications to parts of the documentation. Is that non-free, too??? There is no such thing. If you meant the GNU Free Documentation License, that one allows non-modification clauses only for non-topical chapters. So I think it is ok with DFSG. If there's an exception for non-topical chapters, then why not for standards? A non-topical chapter is more likely to get out of date than a standard, which by design is intended to be eternally fixed. In any case, the DFSG offers exceptions for neither, so the non-modification clause in the GNU FDL is not _okay_ with the DFSG. By the strict reading of the DFSG, if it is to apply to documentation and RFC's, modificiation must be allowed. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored. - Joseph_Greg
Re: Cactvs-license
Hello again, On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 03:01:20PM -0500, David Starner wrote: On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 09:02:02PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote: This is part of my distribution agreement with the university - I am not allowed to distribute the software to companies without a fee (which mainly goes to the university, and must be priced comparable to other commercial software). The univ. considers itself to be a copyright holder, and this was the only way to get any distribution rights. He didn't answer the non-free question yet, though. Huh? That's an answer to the non-free question, right there. AFAICT, he just states that his program is commercial ie non-free, with the right to distribute. The part he wasn't responding to was this: We must have at least the possibility to adjust the installation process to the FHS and Debian policy, that would mean that I would distribute the original source along with a patch to account for the needs of the Debian Packaging System, and a ready to install .deb-binary. (I see that I wrote 'source' instead of 'binaries', my fault) Do you think his statement above along with the license is enough so that inclusion into non-free is alright? thanks, Michael
Re: cthugha (non-free) license
The remainder of the source (not already public domain, no explicit author's copyright notice) is Copyright 1995-97 by Harald Deischinger. The source code may be copied freely and may be used in other I think this may remain? While this has to be changed: yes public domain essentially gives all possible rights with no restrictions. programs under the following conditions: It may not be used in a commercial program without prior permission. Please credit the author (in general, credit Cthugha, Torps Productions and Harald Deischinger) as the source of the code. What about the begging for credits? I never understood why this is not in DFSG 4.). Is that against 9.? It is also done in the hello package. credit is fine, recall the BSD license did that for years. It is a grey area which we should define better. However, i find it nearly impossible for a non-native english speaker to completely understand even the DFSG. I try often, but heading and content of each paragraph appear to me to have 'nothing in common'. lawyerese is hard even for native speakers. (What does 7. mean need for execution of an additional license'. I execute programs for a long time, but admit i never got this sentence.) As much as i try, i have sometimes difficulties following even a german lawyer. I never restricted my own software and, honestly, i feel quite secure with my compiler and without your help, i would rather rewrite this program from scratch before i'd start to sort out all that legal stuff. That's why i was asking in the first place. So: What 7 is trying to say is your rights must be governed only by the license of the software and any software it is derived from. Something like this may only be GPL if you also qualify for FooLicense would break this clause. So back to your problems. You need to get the current author AND the holders of any copyrights to assign either a free license or the rights to you so that you can assign a free license.
