Re: Did nmap just become non-free?

[Brett Gilio]

zimoun  writes:

>
> It will be interesting to know what FSF licensing will say.
>

Indeed, this may need to be opened on the FSDG mailing list.

-- 
Brett M. Gilio

https://brettgilio.com

Re: Did nmap just become non-free?

[Andreas Enge]

Hello,

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 12:12:45AM +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
>   Proprietary software companies wishing to use or incorporate Covered
>   Software within their programs must contact Licensor to purchase a
>   separate license. Open source developers who wish to incorporate parts
>   of Covered Software into free software with conflicting licenses may
>   write Licensor to request a waiver of terms.
> 
> From .
> 
> So a "proprietary software company" cannot use or incorporate nmap
> within a program, even if that program is free (as in software)?

the formulation is weird, but I am reading this more as "you cannot
incorporate this software into a proprietary one", which more or less
summarises the difference between the GPL and the LGPL.

In guix/licenses.scm, the previous entry for nmap (dating from 2016),
instead of providing a link to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ , gave one
to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/Nmap , which classifies the
license as free, but incompatible with the GPL.

It would be nice to get feedback from the FSF on the question, indeed;
but I am less pessimistic than you!

Andreas

Re: Did nmap just become non-free?

[zimoun]

Hi Marius,

On Thu, 15 Oct 2020 at 00:13, Marius Bakke  wrote:

> > This is definitely not a consistent license for us.
>
> Having re-read the original text (without the annotations), the thing
> that stands out is:
>
>   Proprietary software companies wishing to use or incorporate Covered
>   Software within their programs must contact Licensor to purchase a
>   separate license. Open source developers who wish to incorporate parts
>   of Covered Software into free software with conflicting licenses may
>   write Licensor to request a waiver of terms.
>
> From .

IANAL, it’s a weird way to "double" license; it’s fine since it’s GPLv2
too.


> I'll see what licens...@fsf.org has to say first.

For the record, the free GNU/linux distributions Parabola (listed here
[1]) distributes "nmap": 

   

It will be interesting to know what FSF licensing will say.


> PS: Licenses make terrible bed-side reading!

Boring enough to want to sleep fast? ;-)


All the best,
simon

Re: Did nmap just become non-free?

[Brett Gilio]

Marius Bakke  writes:

> Having re-read the original text (without the annotations), the thing
> that stands out is:
>
>   Proprietary software companies wishing to use or incorporate Covered
>   Software within their programs must contact Licensor to purchase a
>   separate license. Open source developers who wish to incorporate parts
>   of Covered Software into free software with conflicting licenses may
>   write Licensor to request a waiver of terms.
>
> From .
>
> So a "proprietary software company" cannot use or incorporate nmap
> within a program, even if that program is free (as in software)?

I believe that clause about "proprietary software companies" (if such a
thing could even be defined, legally) violates freedom 0.

Do let me know what the licensing lab says.

-- 
Brett M. Gilio

https://brettgilio.com

Re: Did nmap just become non-free?

[Marius Bakke]

Brett Gilio  writes:

> Marius Bakke  writes:
>>
>> ...I'm fairly certain this is not an acceptable license for Guix, or
>> free software distributions in general.
>>
>
> This is definitely not a consistent license for us.

Having re-read the original text (without the annotations), the thing
that stands out is:

  Proprietary software companies wishing to use or incorporate Covered
  Software within their programs must contact Licensor to purchase a
  separate license. Open source developers who wish to incorporate parts
  of Covered Software into free software with conflicting licenses may
  write Licensor to request a waiver of terms.

From .

So a "proprietary software company" cannot use or incorporate nmap
within a program, even if that program is free (as in software)?

>> So I think we should revert the license change, as well as the update
>> to 7.90 which introduced the new license.
>>
>> Now to read the previous license text, perhaps that will help me sleep..
>>
>
>
> As to how to fix it, I think we will need to revert the change, and also
> make note of the FINAL version of nmap that was still compliant with FSDG.

I'll see what licens...@fsf.org has to say first.

PS: Licenses make terrible bed-side reading!


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Re: Did nmap just become non-free?

[Brett Gilio]

Marius Bakke  writes:
>
> ...I'm fairly certain this is not an acceptable license for Guix, or
> free software distributions in general.
>

This is definitely not a consistent license for us.

> So I think we should revert the license change, as well as the update
> to 7.90 which introduced the new license.
>
> Now to read the previous license text, perhaps that will help me sleep..
>


As to how to fix it, I think we will need to revert the change, and also
make note of the FINAL version of nmap that was still compliant with FSDG.


-- 
Brett M. Gilio

https://brettgilio.com