help with Eterm license(s)

Ed Hill ed at eh3.com
Fri Mar 17 17:09:38 UTC 2006


On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 23:26 +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > OK, it got through the debian packaging process which sounds like a good
> > sign but is not sufficient for Fedora [I don't see any Fedora guidelines
> > that say "if its in Debian's main repository then its perfectly OK for
> > us, too!"  :-)]
> 
> The comment #4 should, in my opinion, be submitted to the debian maintainer.
> This package doesn't seems to be in shape for inclusion in debian.
> 
> > What about the (apparently?) conflicting license terms within the
> > various source files?  Have you read them?  At least one file states
> > that it cannot be sold for profit and other files have GPL, LGPL, and
> > BSD-ish licenses.  As the submitter says, its messy.  So my question is:
> > is it messy but acceptable or should it be rejected?
> 
> As it is, I think that it should be rejected. Or changed such that files
> with problematic copyrights are removed. The Comment #4 seems to me to carry
> a rigorous licence review. Only one thing is missing, that in command.c
> there are other copyright holders that should be contacted to accept to change
> their code to GPL before the whole file may be considered as GPL. Same apply
> for another file.
> 
> I think that the next step would be to contact the debian maintainer, and
> maybe other distros, to warn them that they are doing something illegal
> (LGPL conflicts with no sell), given that the upstream has allready been 
> contacted.

Hi Patrice,

Thanks for the feedback!  I sent the debian eterm maintainer an email
describing the situation.  And I'm going to follow your advice and
reject the package.

Also, I'll note in the review that if upstream sorts out the license
situation then it can be re-submitted.

Ed

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
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