[Debburn-devel] License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions

[Francesco Poli]

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:49:35 +0200 Josselin Mouette wrote:

> Le dimanche 24 septembre 2006 à 23:32 +0200, Francesco Poli a écrit :
[...]
> > Here, the restriction clearly forbids creating a derivative work
> > that is a drop-in replacement of the original, and thus interferes
> > with interoperability.
> 
> It does, but to what extent? AIUI wodim doesn't output this text and
> can be a drop-in replacement without a problem.

I don't know whether there are any frontends around that request the
string to cdrecord and check that the returned value is "schily".
There could exist some such frontends (not necessarily distributed by
Debian!) and they could break as soon as wodim replaces cdrecord on the
user's system!

[...]
> > Dropping this restriction from cdrkit would be a solution, if a
> > qualified lawyer confirms that we have the right to do so...
> 
> I agree that we need some legal expertise to confirm that. Doesn't
> Debian or SPI have access to a lawyer for such cases? What is the
> appropriate procedure?

As Nathanael already said (on debian-legal), you could ask the DPL
and/or the SPI board.
But IANADD, so I'm not sure if there's a formal procedure for these
cases...

> 
> > Anyway, let's not split hairs on the validity of Joerg Schilling's
> > claims: what we are talking about are clearly non-free restrictions
> > (I hope we can agree on that...) and must thus be solved somehow.
> 
> I think the problem is more about GPL-compatibility than about
> DFSG-freeness. DFSG #4 already allows licenses forbidding re-use of
> the name or version number, and this isn't much a different case here.

DFSG#4 allows forbidding re-use of the name of the work or of the
version number, but doesn't allow restricting *behavioral* features
of programs.
I still think that this restriction is a DFSG-freeness issue (as well as
an additional restriction w.r.t. the GNU GPL v2).

Moreover, let's not forget there are other problematic restrictions: did
you read my analysis in the debian-legal thread?
You can find it here, for your convenience:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00099.html


-- 
But it is also tradition that times *must* and always
do change, my friend.   -- from _Coming to America_
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12  31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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