[Debian-eeepc-devel] UPX

[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:21:51 +0100
"Andrew Williams" <andy at tensixtyone.com> wrote:
> I'd personally ask to avoid it, their licensing is GPL and in the
> "free commerical" license they make reference to this nugget.
> 
>    The stub which is imbedded in each UPX compressed program is part
>    of UPX and UCL, and contains code that is under our copyright. The
>    terms of the GNU General Public License still apply as compressing
>    a program is a special form of linking with our stub.
> 
> That alone is enough for the legal guys to start screaming from the hills.
> 
> http://upx.sourceforge.net/upx-license.html

If you have legal qualms, you had better take it up with
debian-legal, (checking the list archives first before you
raise the issue with them,) as upx has been in Debian since 2000.

I can't see anything wrong with the above.  They are saying that their
code is GPL'd but they make a linking exception for commercial code.
They own the copyright, so they are within their rights to set whatever
license terms they want.  Furthermore, I can't see how this would
violate the DFSG.  What, then, is your concern?

Ben