Re: Freeness of this license
On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:31:08 +0700 Ivan Shmakov wrote: Bastien ROUCARIES roucaries.bast...@gmail.com writes: Hi, I am going to package fastcap and fasthenry. i have neithertheless a problem with the last paragraph of the license What do you think ? […] Unless I be mistaken, this is a BSD-style license. Not so similar to a BSD license, in my humble opinion... The last paragraph, AIUI, is just one more warranty waiver. Not really: it is an indemnification clause, actually. I am undecided on its acceptability and would love hearing the opinion of other debian-legal regulars: it smells as non-free, what do others think? IANAL, and other usual disclaimers apply. Many disclaimers apply to me as well... -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpz6TWk1NT5l.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Freeness of this license
Bastien ROUCARIES roucaries.bast...@gmail.com writes: Hi, I am going to package fastcap and fasthenry. Thank you for giving attention to the important issue of the work's license. * Copyright (C) 2003 by the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hereafter designated as the Copyright Owners. The inappropriate language – “copyright owners” is an oxymoron, since copyright is not property – is objectionable, but does not in itself affect the freedom of the work. License to use, copy, modify, sell and/or distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without royalty, subject to the following terms and conditions: […] I agree that the text covered by that elision is a standard 3-clause BSD-style license. LICENSEE shall indemnify, hold harmless and defend the Copyright Owners and their trustees, officers, employees, students and agents against any and all claims arising out of the exercise of any rights under this Agreement, including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, against any damages, losses or liabilities whatsoever with respect to death or injury to person or damage to property arising from or out of the possession, use, or operation of Software or Licensed Program(s) by LICENSEE or its customers. This is an imposition of boundless and unknowable costs on the licensee, based on the action of other parties. It goes far beyond the (already included) warranty disclaimer, and reaches into the future life of the licensee to oblige legal defense of the copyright holder. It makes the work non-free, in my opinion. If the paragraph were dropped, the disclaimer of warranty earlier would still stand, which should be sufficient. It would also make the license almost identical to a 3-clause BSD license, so I would just encourage the copyright holder to reduce license proliferation by issuing a standard text instead of their own variant. -- \ “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not | `\entitled to their own facts.” —US Senator Pat Moynihan | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ehmpciho@benfinney.id.au
Re: Freeness of this license
Le Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 10:48:35AM +1000, Ben Finney a écrit : LICENSEE shall indemnify, hold harmless and defend the Copyright Owners and their trustees, officers, employees, students and agents against any and all claims arising out of the exercise of any rights under this Agreement, including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, against any damages, losses or liabilities whatsoever with respect to death or injury to person or damage to property arising from or out of the possession, use, or operation of Software or Licensed Program(s) by LICENSEE or its customers. This is an imposition of boundless and unknowable costs on the licensee, based on the action of other parties. It goes far beyond the (already included) warranty disclaimer, and reaches into the future life of the licensee to oblige legal defense of the copyright holder. It makes the work non-free, in my opinion. Hi Ben and others, I would like to advertise the packages-metadata repository: http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/collab-qa/packages-metadata/ svn://svn.debian.org/collab-qa/packages-metadata/ http://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata Today it already contains 3431 Debian copyright files. Most of them are up to date (but consistency checks have not been implemented yet). Using this tool, one can search for similar license terms in the Debian archive. Note that the pool includes the non-free section... Given the multiplicity of variants, it is hard to tell if there are similar restrictions on works already accepted in Debian. Maybe the DNG SDK from Adobe in digikam ? 5. INDEMNIFICATION If you choose to distribute the Software in a commercial product, you do so with the understanding that you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Adobe against any losses, damages and costs arising from the claims, lawsuits or other legal actions arising out of such distribution. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120830045046.ga16...@falafel.plessy.net
