Pablo Duboue <pablo.dub...@gmail.com> writes: > I recently learn to use this handy hexdump tool, xxd. It is > distributed as part of vim-common and it has the following license: > > (c) 1990-1997 by Juergen Weigert > <jnwei...@informatik.uni-erlangen.de> > > Distribute freely and credit me, > make money and share with me, > lose money and don't ask me.
None of this is phrased as a grant of permission nor a requirement. Its legal enforcibility would presumably suffer for that. Some DFSG-required permissions are not explicitly granted. That makes the work non-free, IMO. It also fails the Tentacles of Evil test, IMO: a future hostile copyright holder can use this to restrict the freedom of the work retroactively, without needing to change the license text. Permissions: If we are to infer any grant of permission from “distribute freely”, “make money”, “lose money”, then that set omits permission to redistribute under the same license terms, and permission to redistribute derived works. That fails DFSG §3. Does “distribute freely” grant permission to distribute in compiled form only? In source form only? Both together? This may pass DFSG §2, or not. Permission to redistribute for a fee is required by DFSG §1; does “make money” grant that? Does the rest of that caluse restrict it, and if so how? Permission to “lose money” is unproblematic, as far as I can tell :-) If, on the other hand, the phrasing in those clauses is not enforcible, then no permissions are granted, the default “All rights reserved” applies, and the work is trivially non-free. Requirements: If we are to infer any requirement from “credit me”, “share with me”, “don't ask me”, it's quite unclear what requirements those actually are. If any of them are enforcible, though, then presumably all of them must be met simultaneously. What does “credit me” entail? Only the copyright holder can say for sure. If the requirement is to credit in an obnoxious advertising-like manner, then that's been judged non-DFSG-free. What does “share with me” entail? Is it “share [the money] with me”? Is it “share [the work] with me”? How could a recipient ever know whether they have complied with that restriction sufficiently? This uncertainty may fall foul of DFSG §6. IMO it clearly falls foul of DFSG §1. What does “don't ask me” entail? This has the same enforcibility as the other requirements; if we're going to comply with the other requirements we need to comply with this one. But “don't ask me [about your loss]”? This requirement is either an obstacle to all the other permissions, or it's a superfluous lawyer-bomb. > https://enterprise.dejacode.com/license_library/Demo/xxd/ > > this is a "classic two clause open source license" with a special > commercial obligation that is not specific. Perhaps the author meant it that way, but the text does not imply that unless read *extremely* generously, and inferring far more than is written in the text. I disagree with that assessment. This fails the Tentacles of Evil test squarely, IMO: it is far too easy for a future hostile copyright holder to decide on any of a range of different, justifiable, interpretations of this license text that makes this work non-free in any of a number of ways. > Please cc: me as I'm not subscribed to debian-legal. Done. Hope that helps, and thank you for caring about the freedom of Debian recipients. -- \ “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more | `\ robust, sophisticated, and well supported in logic and argument | _o__) than others.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney <b...@benfinney.id.au> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/85r3uno7m8....@benfinney.id.au
