Someone sent me an off-list reply. I have forwarded it as it provides some additional information.
----- Forwarded message from Alexander Shpilkin <[email protected]> ----- Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:09:54 +0300 From: Alexander Shpilkin <[email protected]> To: Morten Linderud <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [arch-dev-public] Mongodb and SSPL User-Agent: alot/0.7 [I originally wrote this as a message to the list without realizing I can’t post there; feel free to send it wherever.] TL;DR: There’s enough FUD in the SSPL to make it unclear whether Mongo can, in fact, be distributed or not. Quoting Morten Linderud <[email protected]> (2019-01-16 15:02:55) > As probably some of you have realized, there is a discussion regarding > mongodb and the relicense from AGPLv3 to SSPLv1. [...] > > Obviously, we don't care about the license being free nor OSI > compliant. We only care if we are allowed to redistribute or not. > > [...] > > There is nothing in the SSPLv1 license text that prohibits us from > distributing mongodb. I feel I should point out here that there’s uncertainty on part of both [debian-legal participants][1] and [Debian FTP masters][2] as to whether the distribution of binaries falls under the service restrictions. If it does, this would mean all software on the mirrors would need to be SSPL-compatible (in particular, non-GPL), which _would_ prohibit us. The SSPL authors [were asked][3] for their stance on this question, but do not appear to have answered. I think this is troubling in itself. > There are however special requirements in the license we have to abide > if we want to distribute modified source code. > > Currently the PKGBUILD does a few sed's in the source to build it. [...] Note that the service restrictions (which are different from distribution restrictions) are applicable to both modified and unmodified versions; in fact, the original authors [declare][4] this to be among the design goals of the SSPL. [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2018/10/msg00008.html [2]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=915537#50 [3]: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-October/003654.html [4]: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-October/003603.html -- Alex Shpilkin ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Morten Linderud PGP: 9C02FF419FECBE16
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
