Yao Wei (魏銘廷) <[email protected]> > I want to confirm if the license below is DFSG free or not: > http://www.array.com.tw/company/array_license.pdf > > The most suspicious part is: > When any derived and related work of Array Input Method is released to > public, the licensee must inform the original author of Array Input > Method within one month by sending an e-mail to: > [email protected] with the subject: "Informing: Array Input > Method".
The freedom to share one's changes freely under the same terms as the original is essential (DFSG 1+3), so that "must" looks to me like a fairly classic case of postcardware. I don't believe that has ever been regarded as acceptable under DFSG. See, for example, http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html#weird_clauses and http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/01/msg00010.html > There was a chat in #debian-mentors which claims it has discrimination > on users who don't use email. I've found it may not pass dissident > test (the user must send an email to the original author, thus > dissident may expose its email). However, I am wondering if the > "desert island" test is not a *public* environment. IMHO, it is not > necessary to inform the author in that environment in that extreme > case. I have no way of knowing if the original licensor would agree with that, but regardless of the tests, I feel that this software does not appear to meet DFSGs 1 and 3. I second the suggestion of Paul Wise: asking for a well-known free software licence would be worthwhile. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
