Re: Question about license compatibility
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hope to have answered to your question. I am sorry but I did not succeed in asking Berkeley's Regents for a license change. Didn't they issue a blanket license change for _all_ code owned by them under the old bsd license? Yes. But the original spice code was not under the old BSD license. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
Hope to have answered to your question. I am sorry but I did not succeedin asking Berkeley's Regents for a license change. Didn't they issue a blanket license change for _all_ code owned by them under the old bsd license?
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 02:26:16AM +0300, Gerasimos Melissaratos wrote: Below I include the answer I got from Mr Nenzi about the ngspice licencing. In short, I asked him about the possibility of a re-release of ngspice with the new BSD license or something else compatible with Debian. The short answer is no. Doesn't the message cited below indicate that ngspice is available under 4-clause BSD? Who ever said that the old BSD license wasn't allowed in Debian? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ --- Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 21:39:52 +0200 Download Re: ngspice licencing.msg From: Paolo Nenzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Import addresses [EMAIL PROTECTED] Block email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Block SMTP Relay relay-pt4.poste.it Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gerasimos Melissaratos [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: ngspice licencingAll headers Dear Gerasimos, Sorry for this delay in answering but I am on holidays and have some spare time to scan the messages on ngspice lists. The licensing of ngspice is quite intricated but, AFAIK ngspice cannot be packaged for official-debian. You can consider ngspice covered by the old BSD license (the one with the obnoxiuous clause). Look at the Xspice license, since ngspice includes xspice, then its license applies too. Hope to have answered to your question. I am sorry but I did not succeed in asking Berkeley's Regents for a license change. Ciao, Paolo --- On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:03:56 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote On Thursday 21 July 2005 04:49 pm, Gerasimos Melissaratos wrote: I'd like to create a package for ng-spice, which seems to be governed by two licenses, which I include herein. In first reading I cannot see any real discrepancies, but of course IANAL. Pls tell me if any of them is compatible with DFSG. I'm surprised no one has responded to this yet... so I guess I'll get the ball rolling. Its my opinion that both licenses are non-free, for reasonably well established and non-controversial reasons. License 1 contains a limitation on use (educational, research and non- profit purposes, without fee) which is a violation of DFSG #6. License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but both are kind of stretches. Anyone else have thoughts? -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown -- Gerasimos Melissaratos ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Question about license compatibility
Below I include the answer I got from Mr Nenzi about the ngspice licencing. In short, I asked him about the possibility of a re-release of ngspice with the new BSD license or something else compatible with Debian. The short answer is no. In the face of that, would it be possible to include a package of ngspice in the non-free tree? I mean, it *is* a unique package and having the geda suit without it does seem a bit strange... --- Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 21:39:52 +0200 Download Re: ngspice licencing.msg From: Paolo Nenzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Import addresses [EMAIL PROTECTED] Block email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Block SMTP Relay relay-pt4.poste.it Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gerasimos Melissaratos [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: ngspice licencing All headers Dear Gerasimos, Sorry for this delay in answering but I am on holidays and have some spare time to scan the messages on ngspice lists. The licensing of ngspice is quite intricated but, AFAIK ngspice cannot be packaged for official-debian. You can consider ngspice covered by the old BSD license (the one with the obnoxiuous clause). Look at the Xspice license, since ngspice includes xspice, then its license applies too. Hope to have answered to your question. I am sorry but I did not succeed in asking Berkeley's Regents for a license change. Ciao, Paolo --- On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:03:56 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote On Thursday 21 July 2005 04:49 pm, Gerasimos Melissaratos wrote: I'd like to create a package for ng-spice, which seems to be governed by two licenses, which I include herein. In first reading I cannot see any real discrepancies, but of course IANAL. Pls tell me if any of them is compatible with DFSG. I'm surprised no one has responded to this yet... so I guess I'll get the ball rolling. Its my opinion that both licenses are non-free, for reasonably well established and non-controversial reasons. License 1 contains a limitation on use (educational, research and non- profit purposes, without fee) which is a violation of DFSG #6. License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but both are kind of stretches. Anyone else have thoughts? -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown -- Gerasimos Melissaratos ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Saturday 23 July 2005 04:41 pm, Francesco Poli wrote: On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:03:56 -0700 Sean Kellogg wrote: Anyone else have thoughts? Yes, I have one: |3. The licensee agrees to obey all U.S. Government res- trictions |governing redistribution or export of the software and |documentation. That sounds non-free. Suppose I'm *not* a U.S. citizen[1]: why should I be bound to obey U.S. Government restrictions? [1] as I was born in Italy, *live* in Italy, and am an Italian citizen, this is actually the case! ;-) This is a difficult situation that is worth commentary. Assume for a moment that the U.S. has some strict export restriction. As a U.S. citizen I am bound by those laws and cannot legally violate them. Further, if I am to distribute software it is entirely possible that the law prohibits me from distributing that software to citizens of certain nations and to ensure those who receive copies do the same. I don't think the law can really require that I ensure the behavior of those I distribute copies to; after all, it's a completely impossible requirement! I was always under the impression that I was simply not allowed to export them *myself*, or *encourage* others to do so. If the law imposes a positive requirement that I police the behavior of anyone I distribute the software to, that's pretty evil. I sure hope it doesn't do that. This means I have have a responsibility to ensure others don't distribute and cause me to break the law. The only tool by which I have to do that is the license. Not that that would work. If ensure were really the requirement, surely a clause in the license would be not nearly enough; you would presumably be expected to keep track of everyone you distributed it to, monitor their behavior, etc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 21:46 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Saturday 23 July 2005 08:04 pm, Jeff Licquia wrote: On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 17:11 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: This is a difficult situation that is worth commentary. Assume for a moment that the U.S. has some strict export restriction. As a U.S. citizen I am bound by those laws and cannot legally violate them. Further, if I am to distribute software it is entirely possible that the law prohibits me from distributing that software to citizens of certain nations and to ensure those who receive copies do the same. This means I have have a responsibility to ensure others don't distribute and cause me to break the law. The only tool by which I have to do that is the license. Is this really true? Sorry if I didn't make it clear that I am very much talking about hypothetical. Thanks for the clarification. My interest, I guess, is whether the DFSG will forbid a developer from having their code distributed if they live in a country with restrictive export laws? The old crypto export regulations in the US did have the effect of prohibiting Debian developers in the US from doing any work on crypto in Debian. See also the MIT Kerberos bones project, from which Heimdal Kerberos sprung. So, it would seem, the answer to your question is yes. On the other hand, in the US, there's a sense in which sharing source code has freedom of speech implications (see Bernstein v. DOJ and the various projects to print crypto code on T-shirts). This limits the extent to which the government can use export regulations to forbid citizens from participation in free software activities, assuming the linkage is upheld. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:03:56 -0700 Sean Kellogg wrote: Anyone else have thoughts? Yes, I have one: |3. The licensee agrees to obey all U.S. Government res- trictions |governing redistribution or export of the software and |documentation. That sounds non-free. Suppose I'm *not* a U.S. citizen[1]: why should I be bound to obey U.S. Government restrictions? [1] as I was born in Italy, *live* in Italy, and am an Italian citizen, this is actually the case! ;-) -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgppH5eawcWpj.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Saturday 23 July 2005 04:41 pm, Francesco Poli wrote: On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:03:56 -0700 Sean Kellogg wrote: Anyone else have thoughts? Yes, I have one: |3. The licensee agrees to obey all U.S. Government res- trictions |governing redistribution or export of the software and |documentation. That sounds non-free. Suppose I'm *not* a U.S. citizen[1]: why should I be bound to obey U.S. Government restrictions? [1] as I was born in Italy, *live* in Italy, and am an Italian citizen, this is actually the case! ;-) This is a difficult situation that is worth commentary. Assume for a moment that the U.S. has some strict export restriction. As a U.S. citizen I am bound by those laws and cannot legally violate them. Further, if I am to distribute software it is entirely possible that the law prohibits me from distributing that software to citizens of certain nations and to ensure those who receive copies do the same. This means I have have a responsibility to ensure others don't distribute and cause me to break the law. The only tool by which I have to do that is the license. Is it Debian's stance that I cannot do so? Can the United State's Government bar me from contributing to Debian by imposing export restrictions? I wasn't on d-l at the time, but wasn't this the point of non-US. Whatever happened to that? -Sean -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 17:11 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: This is a difficult situation that is worth commentary. Assume for a moment that the U.S. has some strict export restriction. As a U.S. citizen I am bound by those laws and cannot legally violate them. Further, if I am to distribute software it is entirely possible that the law prohibits me from distributing that software to citizens of certain nations and to ensure those who receive copies do the same. This means I have have a responsibility to ensure others don't distribute and cause me to break the law. The only tool by which I have to do that is the license. Is this really true? It is entirely possible that the law forbids our project's current work habits, especially when said work habits involve interaction with the people responsible for enforcing this law. (And didn't those same people cite us as a model for others to follow in regards to compliance?) I suppose, though, that it would be good to find out for sure. When all this came down, it is my recollection that the regulations treated freely available software differently from proprietary software, with fewer regulations placed upon it. Could you perhaps have overlooked this distinction? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Saturday 23 July 2005 08:04 pm, Jeff Licquia wrote: On Sat, 2005-07-23 at 17:11 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: This is a difficult situation that is worth commentary. Assume for a moment that the U.S. has some strict export restriction. As a U.S. citizen I am bound by those laws and cannot legally violate them. Further, if I am to distribute software it is entirely possible that the law prohibits me from distributing that software to citizens of certain nations and to ensure those who receive copies do the same. This means I have have a responsibility to ensure others don't distribute and cause me to break the law. The only tool by which I have to do that is the license. Is this really true? Sorry if I didn't make it clear that I am very much talking about hypothetical. I know that with embargoes American citizens have certain responsibilities to ensure the goods the ship internationally do not end up in the hands of certain nations. I can't say this applies to software, or if such an embargo is even going on (outside of our long standing Cuban embargo). My interest, I guess, is whether the DFSG will forbid a developer from having their code distributed if they live in a country with restrictive export laws? -Sean -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Thursday 21 July 2005 04:49 pm, Gerasimos Melissaratos wrote: X-Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'd like to create a package for ng-spice, which seems to be governed by two licenses, which I include herein. In first reading I cannot see any real discrepancies, but of course IANAL. Pls tell me if any of them is compatible with DFSG. I'm surprised no one has responded to this yet... so I guess I'll get the ball rolling. Its my opinion that both licenses are non-free, for reasonably well established and non-controversial reasons. License 1 contains a limitation on use (educational, research and non-profit purposes, without fee) which is a violation of DFSG #6. License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but both are kind of stretches. Anyone else have thoughts? -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: Question about license compatibility
Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: License 1 contains a limitation on use (educational, research and non-profit purposes, without fee) which is a violation of DFSG #6. License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but both are kind of stretches. That aspect of license 2 isn't a problem - the DFSG don't require that people be able to charge for an item of software, merely the aggregate work. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
On Friday 22 July 2005 03:28 am, Matthew Garrett wrote: Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: License 1 contains a limitation on use (educational, research and non-profit purposes, without fee) which is a violation of DFSG #6. License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but both are kind of stretches. That aspect of license 2 isn't a problem - the DFSG don't require that people be able to charge for an item of software, merely the aggregate work. Why is that the case? The license says: The licensee agrees not to charge for the University of California code itself. The licensee may, however, charge for additions, extensions, or support. If the license said You cannot charge for this code, nor can you charge for it in agregate with other applications outside of this license I might suggest the second part is simply unenforcable. But even if it were enforcable, how does selling code in agregate with other code not fall within the bar against charging for the code itself? The CD has value because of the code, I am charging for the CD, part of why customers are willing to pay for the CD is the value of the code... strikes me as I am, agregate or not, charging for the code. Additionally, how is this not a discrimination on use prohibited under DFSG #6? One of the uses of software is to package, modify, and resell. If I cannot do that because of the license, isn't that a use descrimination? -Sean -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: Question about license compatibility
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes On Friday 22 July 2005 03:28 am, Matthew Garrett wrote: Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: License 1 contains a limitation on use (educational, research and non-profit purposes, without fee) which is a violation of DFSG #6. License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but both are kind of stretches. That aspect of license 2 isn't a problem - the DFSG don't require that people be able to charge for an item of software, merely the aggregate work. Why is that the case? The license says: The licensee agrees not to charge for the University of California code itself. The licensee may, however, charge for additions, extensions, or support. Actually, doesn't the GPL itself contain exactly the same restriction, just worded a bit differently? The GPL forbids charging for the code itself. It DOES permit charging (as much as you can get away with) for the effort of packaging it. I'd class packaging as support, therefore it could be included on a Debian CD because you're not charging for the code. Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports as Lies-to-People. The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about license compatibility
* Anthony W. Youngman: Actually, doesn't the GPL itself contain exactly the same restriction, just worded a bit differently? The GPL forbids charging for the code itself. Only for the source code which you must make available when you distribute binaries, you may not charge for anything but your actual costs to create and ship the copy. You can charge what you want for plain source code, binaries, or a combination of source code and binaries on the same distribution medium. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
