Re: [GNU-linux-libre] has dosemu freedom issues?

[Sam Geeraerts]

Henry Jensen wrote:
> Hello,.
>
> a user of my distro asked if we can include dosemu, another user said, that 
> we can't because dosemu has freedom issues.
>
> To quote the user:
> "the DOS part needs OpenWatcom (OSS, but NOT libre) or TurboC/TurboC++ (gratis not libre) 
> to build." The "DOS part" refers to FreeDOS.

So dosemu is libre and FreeDOS is libre, but FreeDOS can only be built 
with non-free tools? That last step is not good, but it's beyond what we 
should worry about, IMO. If we have to check the build tools of software 
that we don't carry but could be used with one of our packages, then we 
should also check the build tools of those build tools and so on.

> OpenWatcom is released under the "Open Watcom Public License". The FSF license list don't 
> mention it.
>
> Has anyone more insight regarding this matter?

There's a debian-legal thread about it [1].

At first glance I'd say at least section 2.2(c) is a problem: if you 
modify the software and install it at your workplace, then you have to 
make your modifications available to everyone, not just those you gave 
the binaries to.

[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg34680.html