[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#435214: Bug#435214: octave-sp: license is neither GPL-compatible nor DFSG-free

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* Steven G. Johnson <stevenj at fftw.org> [2007-07-30 00:09]:

> Package: octave-sp
> Version: 1:2003-4
> Severity: serious
> Justification: Policy 2.2.1
> 
> The copyright file lists the following:
> 
>     COPYRIGHT 1994 LIEVEN VANDENBERGHE AND STEPHEN BOYD
>     Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for 
>     any purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire 
>     notice is included in all copies of any software which is or includes
>     a copy or modification of this software and in all copies of the 
>     supporting documentation for such software.
> 
> Notice that it only grants permission to use/copy/modify "without fee".  
> Thus, this software cannot be distributed commercially and hence 
> violates the DFSG.  (Probably the authors intended "without fee" to 
> apply to the permission, not as a condition on distribution etc., but 
> unfortunately that does not follow unambiguously from a literal 
> reading.)
> 
> However, I happen to know Stephen Boyd personally (he is a Stanford 
> professor), and he is a big free-software and GNU/Linux proponent who 
> would doubtless be happy to clarify the license terms (or just switch to 
> the standard MIT/X11 license language) if contacted.

I think that you are right: the sentence in the COPYRIGHT file is ambiguous
and must be clarified.  However, before contacting the upstream author, I
would like to know whether this package works with Octave 2.9.  Does anyone
know?  I have never used the semidef-oct package myself...

-- 
Rafael