I've been discussing this with the FSF's outside counsel, Dan Ravicher. I have some ideas for how to generate a new word-list if we do end up needing one, but I don't want to discuss them until I've talked with a lawyer. I'll probably get some sort of final answer with Dan tomorrow at the GPL Compliance Lab conference call.
On Tue, 2002-11-05 at 00:49, Brian Nelson wrote: > Richard, > > It has come to the attention of debian-legal that the aspell-en package > is licensed under questionable terms. In particular, aspell-en uses the > "DEC Word List," which contains the following notice: > > (NON-)COPYRIGHT STATUS > > To the best of my knowledge, all the files I used to build these > wordlists were available for public distribution and use, at least > for non-commercial purposes. I have confirmed this assumption with > the authors of the lists, whenever they were known. > > Therefore, it is safe to assume that the wordlists in this package > can also be freely copied, distributed, modified, and used for > personal, educational, and research purposes. (Use of these files in > commercial products may require written permission from DEC and/or > the authors of the original lists.) > ... > > Naturally, this violates the following clause of the Debian Free > Software Guidelines: > > No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor > > The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in > a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the > program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic > research. > > The GNU/Aspell maintainer, Kevin Atkinson, has stated that you reviewed > and accepted this license as suitable for use with the GNU/Aspell > project. On behalf of debian-legal, I would like to ask if you could > clarify your position regarding the terms of the aspell-en license, and > in particular, the DEC Word List "license". > > Debian's current stance was nicely summarized by Jeff Licquia in this > message: > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200211/msg00041.html > > Thank you for your time, > Brian > > -- > People said I was dumb, but I proved them! > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -Dave Turner Stalk Me: 617 441 0668 "Your subsequent comparison of Cornell University with the Ku Klux Klan is probably, umm, a slight exaggeration, but never mind." -John Baez (sci.physics.research)