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Re: [gNewSense-users] Possible problem with closed bug 123


From: Sam Geeraerts
Subject: Re: [gNewSense-users] Possible problem with closed bug 123
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:46:39 +0200
User-agent: Mozilla-Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (X11/20080110)

Martin List-Petersen wrote:
 > Markus Laire wrote:
 >
 > > Paul O'Malley wrote:
 > >    Your extract was not verbose enough to prove your case.
 > >    You should have started here:
 > >    ---
 > >    Upstream Author: Wietse Venema
 > >
 > >    Copyright:
 > >
> > Most of the files, fall under the following copyright, and are > distributable > > under the terms of the BSD license (/usr/share/common-licenses/BSD): > > * Copyright (c) 1983,1991 The Regents of the University of California.
 > >     * All rights reserved.
 > >
> > Some of the RPC code, is copyrighted by Sun Microsystems, and is provided under the following terms:
 > >
 > >    -----
 > >
> > This implies that the code is part of a product which Wietse has licensed.
 > >
 > >    Licence is thus free!
 >
 > But Wietse hasn't licensed RPC code under any free license.
 >
> The above text doesn't say that RPC code is licensed under BSD license. Actually just the opposite. RPC code "is provided under the following terms", and the "following terms" (see below) gives right to distribute *only* for the user who developed the product or program, not to anyone else.

The people maintaining gnewsense have said ok for this code/license, if you think otherwise, get proof from sun that you are right !!!

If you happen to get a lawyer on a bad day and they agree with you - you will have taken NFS out of every GNU/Linux Distribution - well done - until then, you'll have to accept the better judgement of the people that maintain this distribution.


Markus is hardly a stranger to gNewSense and has been a valuable asset to the freedom verification work. So he is in fact helping to maintain gNewSense, in part by helping to make sure that bugs are solved correctly to help further the goal of gNewSense. But new people are of course equally welcome to join or start discussions.

I think it's better to treat code as non-free until proven free. I would like to be wrong on this issue so that the code can stay in, but so far I have not seen many convincing arguments (or maybe someone needs to explain them to me in more detail).




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