On Sat, 20 Aug 2022 00:42:39 -0400 Ben Westover wrote: > Hello,
Hi! > > I was going to package some software that has portions licensed under > the Microsoft Public License. Is it copatible with the DFSG? A quick > search yielded no results. There seems to be an [old thread] about possible interactions with MS-PL licensed libraries and LGPL licensed libraries. However, it does not go into much detail about the MS-PL... [old thread]: <https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/12/msg00056.html> > Below is the full text of the license. > > Thanks, You are welcome. What follows is my quick analysis of the license text. Please note that I am a DM, but I only speak for myself: this is not an official statement from the Debian Project, just my own personal opinion. > -- [...] > > This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the > software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do > not use the software. This may be a minor flaw of this license: it wants to govern use, while Free Software license should not restrict use (usually, only copy, modification, redistribution, and stuff like that, are possibly restricted). However, it seems that use is not much restricted by the license text (see below), so this flaw could perhaps be considered negligible... > > 1. Definitions [...] Nothing special or surprising here, it seems. > 2. Grant of Rights > > (A) Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the > license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants > you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to > reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its > contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works > that you create. This seems to allow anyone to copy, modify, and/or redistribute the work. It looks OK. > > (B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the > license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants > you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed > patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or > otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative > works of the contribution in the software. This grants a patent license as well. It seems to be a good thing to have. > > 3. Conditions and Limitations > > (A) No Trademark License- This license does not grant you rights to use > any contributors' name, logo, or trademarks. This is implicitly true for many Free Software licenses. Hence, nothing to worry about, I would say. ...unless the work under consideration is associated with trademarks governed by some overly aggressive trademark policies. > > (B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents > that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from > such contributor to the software ends automatically. This clause restricts your possibility to sue for patent infringement: if you do so for patents related to the work, you lose the patent grant from the sued contributor over the work itself. This kind of clauses were discussed a long ago on debian-legal: if I recall correctly, this, rather limited, variant was considered to be acceptable by many (if not all) debian-legal regulars at the time. > > (C) If you distribute any portion of the software, you must retain all > copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices that are present > in the software. Nothing unusual. > > (D) If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, > you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of > this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of > the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a > license that complies with this license. Rather permissive, I would say. > > (E) The software is licensed "as-is." You bear the risk of using it. The > contributors give no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You > may have additional consumer rights under your local laws which this > license cannot change. To the extent permitted under your local laws, > the contributors exclude the implied warranties of merchantability, > fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Typical warranty disclaimer (even though worded in rather unusual way). I think it's fine. All in all, it seems to me that the license text should be considered acceptable. I think that software solely licensed under these terms (barring other issues) could be considered to comply with the DFSG. Bye! -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/ There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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