Hi Andreas, Good hearing from you.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 5:14 PM, Andreas Tille <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Jorge, > > On Mon, Oct 06, 2014 at 04:48:28PM +0100, Jorge Sebastião Soares wrote: > > I am in direct contact with the upstream author of gubbins (sit next to > him > > really). > > Gubbins has a dependency on a piece of software called Fastml. Fastml is > > not free. Actually is published under no license. > > This sucks. > > Doesn't it just... > > It has copyright and a > > note saying that anyone wishing to make changes to the code needs to > > contact the author. > > > > For gubbins to work, Fastml needed to be changed. Gubbins upstream has > > contacted the author of Fastml. The author was happy for the code to be > > changed, but has stated that he doesn't wish the code to be published > under > > any kind of free license (actually under any kind of licence). > > > > I was approaching the problem of packaging gubbins in the most sensible > way > > I found. Package Fastml, then package gubbins and state Fastml as a > gubbins > > dependency. I would have to maintain two more packages, but hey... > > > > Now the question is, what is the best way to go about this? > > As far as I know a package with no license at all is simply not > redistributable ... since it is lacking the permission to be distributed > (even in non-free). I now see how much it sucks... > May be there are alternatives with the same > functionality or we try to convince the author to pick at least any > license (also for his own safety!) - preferably a free one. I had a chat with gubbins upstream and I was told not to contact the Fastml author. :( Nonetheless I managed to convince gubbins upstream to ask the Fastml author about a license. Reply: He doesn't care about licenses at all. Let me have a chat around the office again tomorrow. See if we can get the guy to pick something. It could even be Expat. If he is afraid that big evil corporations will make money from his code releasing it as GPL#. (this was hinted in the conversation I had with gubbins upstream, but not sure this was what the Fastml author had in mind) > Just for > the name similarity (*ML): We just managed to convince an author of > some frequently used, long standing non-free license to pick a free > one[1]. > Well done on the Phylip petition. I did sign it... I'm happy I did. Speak soon, Jorge
