On 24/01/2012 15:24, MJ Ray wrote:
Jérémy Lal je...@edagames.com
following npm license is Expat + one restriction,
is it still DFSG ?
If it just this one addition:
Distributions of all or part of the Software intended to be used
by the recipients as they would use the unmodified Software,
containing modifications that substantially alter, remove, or
disable functionality of the Software, outside of the documented
configuration mechanisms provided by the Software, shall be
modified such that the Author's bug reporting email addresses and
urls are either replaced with the contact information of the
parties responsible for the changes, or removed entirely.
Then I feel that would be acceptable under DFSG 4 but it's not exact
and I have not looked for similar examples in the archive.
The wording could be better and suggests a need to consult a lawyer.
Actually, as a quick fix, could you just remove the undefined word
Author's from it?
Hope that helps,
After some exchanges, it appears the author welcomes clarifications to
its addition to the license.
In the latest version, Author has been replaced by Original Author,
and that term defined in the copyright line :
https://raw.github.com/isaacs/npm/master/LICENSE
To be honest, i have been bad at arguing with him; here's his last reply :
On 06/03/2012 19:20, Isaac Schlueter wrote:
On 06/03/2012 18:06, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
I would recommend upstream to not try hack legalese but instead
simply document clearly a friendly _request_ to do do same as now
codified in license.
However, it is clearly in Debian's interest, and not in mine, so it
is not reasonable for me to comply with it. The goal is to prevent
distros from clobbering my software and letting me handle the
fallout. Friendly requests in the past have gone unheeded by several
different groups, some of which asserted that they have the right to
direct bug reports to me, claiming that it's *my* responsibility to
make my software work with their distribution (after they've modified
it without my knowledge!) The only thing that distros pay any
attention to is LICENSE files, so that what I use here. (Evidenced
clearly by the degree of attention that has been paid to it in this
case - would anyone care if it was a plain old MIT?) If a particular
person or distribution would like a special dispensation to disable
or alter features in npm, and to then distribute their modified copy
without changing the name, then they may ask for that directly, and
we can perhaps work something out, whereby they take ownership of
their changes, clearly communicate them to users, and perhaps even
rebrand the software as a downstream fork. If a distro wishes to
alter or disable features of npm, and does *not* wish to take
ownership of their changes, then it would be better for me if they
did not include npm in their distribution. Linux users can already
install npm quite easily from source. Debian users can get it from
Chris Lea's PPA, which does not alter the source code, and thus has
no problem complying with the license. Mac and PC users can get it
automatically along with the node binary installers. Anyone who
installs node from source gets it by default. In other words, if the
terms of this license keep npm out of Debian Stable, or any
particular distro, then that means it's working. The fact that npm is
not in the distro is worse for the distro than it is for npm.
This is not encouraging, despite that :
* it is really easy to comply with this license.
* the bug-reporting contacts can be changed easily
* they don't need to be changed anyway, the npm debian package won't need
any patch (i mean the one being prepared, version 1.1.x, not the one in sid,
which is outdated)
* the author knows perfectly well i'm willing to distribute npm unpatched,
since we've talked this through a while ago.
What can i do from now on ?
Jérémy.
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