[Pkg-db-devel] Bug#256332: Clarification of redistribution

[Michael Olson]

Matthew,

Thanks for your message.  You wrote:

> Good morning.  I am one of the Debian maintainers for the Berkeley
> DB packages.  One of our users recently noticed a discrepancy
> between http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/sleepycat/legal.html and
> http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/sleepycat/license.html .  The former
> (legal.html) states:
>=20
> 	Permission to use this publication or portions of this publication
> 	is granted by Sleepycat Software provided that the above copyright
> 	notice appears in all copies and that use of such publications
> 	is for non-commercial use only and no modifications of the
> 	publication is made.
>=20
> while the latter (license.html) has no such restriction on commercial
> use and http://sleepycat.com/download/index.shtml makes no reference =
to
> commercial use being prohibited.
>=20
> Could you please clarify this point?

Thanks for calling this to our attention.  I believe that Keith Bostic
here has been in touch with others on the Debian project about this
same issue.

The problematic language you cite above, prohibiting commercial use, is
an artifact of an old publishing contract we had for a book that is no
longer in print.  That restriction is no longer important, and we are
glad to remove the language from the Web site.  In fact, with our 4.3
release, we'll be releasing the entire doc set under a Creative Commons
license (their "attribution share-alike" license), which encourages
collaboration, requires sharing and permits commercial and =
non-commercial
use on non-discriminatory terms.

Sleepycat won't enforce any non-commercial prohibition; the language is
an error.

We'll be making our 4.3 release available soon, and will absolutely =
change
the site then.  Is this explanation and assurance sufficient?=20

> On the subject of the legal.html page, while you're acknowledging =
other
> trademarks, would you also mind adding:
>=20
> 	"LINUX=C2=AE is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Yes.  Thanks.  We'll do that promptly.

						mike