Re: TrueCrypt licensing concern

[James Westby]

On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 11:05 -0400, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
 Recently, we had a request to add TrueCrypt to Fedora, and as part of
 that, we did due diligence on the license. What our legal counsel
 discovered was truly horrifying: not only was the license non-free, it
 almost certainly opens the user and the distributor to serious risk of
 legal action from the copyright holder, even if all conditions of the
 license are met.
 
 Accordingly, we've blocked TrueCrypt from inclusion in Fedora and marked
 it as one of our ForbiddenItems.

Thanks for the warning.

Are there any references that you can point to. I can understand
not wanting to post a full assessment of the license, but a list
of the problematic clauses would be good.

Ah, I've just noticed the wiki syntax in which you wrote that.

  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems#TrueCrypt

which is similar to the answer here.

I'll put a pointer to this thread in the Ubuntu request for
packaging and close it.

  https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/109701

Also of interest is the Debian RFP

  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=364034

with links to the debian-legal discussion on the package.

Thanks,

James

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Re: TrueCrypt licensing concern

[Ben Finney]

James Westby [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 11:05 -0400, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
  Recently, we had a request to add TrueCrypt to Fedora, and as part of
  that, we did due diligence on the license. What our legal counsel
  discovered was truly horrifying: not only was the license non-free, it
  almost certainly opens the user and the distributor to serious risk of
  legal action from the copyright holder, even if all conditions of the
  license are met.
 
 Also of interest is the Debian RFP
 
   http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=364034
 
 with links to the debian-legal discussion on the package.

Which seems to come to a contradictory conclusion
URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/07/msg9.html; i.e.
that the license *is* free under the DFSG. (On a quick reading, I
incline more toward the “non-free” side, but that's not something to
be discussed at length here.)

I'd very much like to see Tom Calloway's reference for *why* the
license terms are such a serious risk; preferably, placed in (or
linked from) the Fedora wiki page where the work is forbidden.

-- 
 \ “Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?” “I think so, |
  `\ Brain, but isn't a cucumber that small called a gherkin?” |
_o__)   —_Pinky and The Brain_ |
Ben Finney

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