Re: DFSG-compatibility of a overly short license [tensorflow dependency]

2018-08-21 Thread Ben Finney
Lumin  writes:

> The license for the last libtensorflow.so dependency is very confusing
> because it looks quite incomplete, or exetremely overly simplified.

Thank you for naming the specific software package, and showing the
complete license text.

> > https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/master/third_party/fft2d/LICENSE
> > 
> > Copyright(C) 1997,2001 Takuya OOURA (email: oo...@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp).
> > You may use, copy, modify this code for any purpose and
> > without fee. You may distribute this ORIGINAL package.

There are no restrictions specified (so we have only the restrictions
from copyright law). That explains, I think, the extreme brevity of the
text: it grants freedoms without specifying any conditions.

The license to redistribute in source or binary form is unconditionally
granted (required for DFSG §2).

The license to modify is unconditionally granted (required for DFSG §3).

However, the license to redistribute derived works is not granted (this
violates DFSG §3). By the deliberately emphasised “ORIGINAL package”,
this is apparently a deliberate exclusion on the part of the authors of
this text.

> Is this a free software license? Is it DFSG-compatible?

By this analysis, the work is not DFSG-compatible and is not free software.

-- 
 \   Moriarty: “Forty thousand million billion dollars? That money |
  `\must be worth a fortune!” —The Goon Show, _The Sale of |
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Ben Finney



Re: DFSG-compatibility of a overly short license [tensorflow dependency]

2018-08-21 Thread Gunnar Wolf
Andrej Shadura dijo [Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 08:24:42AM +0200]:
> >> > https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/master/third_party/fft2d/LICENSE
> >> >
> >> > Copyright(C) 1997,2001 Takuya OOURA (email: oo...@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp).
> >> > You may use, copy, modify this code for any purpose and
> >> > without fee. You may distribute this ORIGINAL package.
> >>
> >> Is this a free software license? Is it DFSG-compatible?
> >> It doesn't tell me any detail and looks incomplete.
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Almost, I would say, but IMO most definitively not.
> >
> > It allows people to modify the code, but NOT distribute the
> > modifications (there is emphasis in ORIGINAL).
> 
> I don’t think that’s the intention, and it is probably covered by
> "modify <…> for any purpose" (e.g. modify for the purpose of further
> redistribution).

In any case, it would make the license text ambiguous and
self-contradictory.