On Fri, Jul 02, 2010 at 12:21:51AM +0200, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote: > 2) How can the ftp-masters actually check whether this complies with the > DFSG. As far as I can see from the English translation, it is not > legally binding, and only the Arabic version is. > I guess none of our ftp-masters can read this, but even if, end-users > can not, so I guess people have not change in reading the license they > agree to. > I guess it's common sense that licenses should have a legally binding > version in English, which is kind of the international language.
I believe there is precedent for this. I remember seeing a program under a license written entirely in Japanese. When translated by a DD fluent in Japanese, it was found to be a simple 3-clause BSD-style license which is entirely acceptable. Whether the ftpmasters are comfortable with relying on an unofficial translation is entirely up to them. > 3) The license contains many places which can be considered > discriminatory, racist or fundamentalist. > Apart from that... religious stuff shouldn't go into a license. In general, I tend to agree that religion and law should be separate (and licenses are, by their nature, legal documents). However, I think the major issue of the license is unrelated to religion. It contains restrictions on use, which by their nature are non-free. Furthermore, such restrictions are unenforcable under US copyright law, since first, the actual use of a program is explicitly permitted by law and second, use is not an exclusive right reserved to the copyright holder. Copyright law may differ in other countries. IANAL; IANADD. -- brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US +1 832 623 2791 | http://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b: 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187
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