Re: [gNewSense-users] Main xm-xr has been checked

[Stewart Starbuck]

The SGI license is non free:

The SGI Free Software License B, although its name says "free", is not a free 
software License. It has three major problems. 1. It restricts its patent 
license to unmodified versions of the software. 2. It terminates if your use of 
the software infringes copyrights or patents which are not SGI's. This is 
problematic because it gives SGI grounds to sue you even when you have done 
nothing to them. 3. The license requires you to inform SGI of legal problems 
with the software. This violates your privacy rights, and can conflict with 
professional confidentiality requirements, such as attorney-client privilege.

I flagged this issue with libx11, but as pointed out by bbrazil:
If you grep through the source, you’ll see that the only files mentioning this 
license are the COPYING and copyright. So it looks like this is a holdover from 
a previous version that noone has cleaned up, so this license doesn’t affect 
the freedom of the package

I'd do the same with xorg-xserver, to see if this is the same case.

I'd do it myself, but I'm on a readers week, and have way too much work to do 
at the moment =(


----- Original Message ----
From: Chris Andrew <address@hidden>
To: Brian Kemp <address@hidden>
Cc: address@hidden
Sent: Friday, 26 October, 2007 5:11:01 PM
Subject: Re: [gNewSense-users] Main xm-xr has been checked

Brian,

Thanks for having the sense to ask for this to be checked.  It is
better to be in doubt and raise a bug, than to say the package is
free, when you are not sure.

The xorg-xserver package is pretty important to the GNU/Linux
community, so it is essential we get our stance sorted on this one.  I
know some distros are still using XFree86, but that would go in the
opposite direction to Ubuntu.

Please could the list consider helping Brian on this one.

Many thanks.

Cheers,

chris.

On 26/10/2007, Brian Kemp <address@hidden> wrote:
> I finished this one up last night, but didn't update main.
>
> Can I ask a quick favor?
>
> Can someone else independently verify that xorg-xserver (or
> xserver-xorg, I forget, it's Friday) is free?  The copyright file is
> 44k!
>
> I believe it is free (The Bitstream Vera fonts have one small
> restriction about commercial use, but it is easily worked around; RMS
> says that is fine.)
>
> I bring into question the license from DEC, the license from SGI, and
> the license directly below it that looks to be the same.
>
> DEC seems to be in the same vein as New BSD, MIT, ISC, what have
> you--permissive non-copyleft and seems to be okay, but I'd like
> another reading for thoroughness.
>
> The SGI licenses does as well but it has a lot more terms and sections.
>
> I do not really see a huge chance that this package is
> non-free--however it's an important one and I'd rather have someone
> else verify my work here.
>
> Thanks!
> --Brian
>
> (No PGP sig, not at home computer, and no smart card yet.)
>
> P.S.> If anyone would like me to double-check any of their package
> work, just say so.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gNewSense-users mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
>


-- 
Reasons why you may want to try GNU/Linux:

http://www.getgnulinux.org/

A great GNU/Linux distro:

http://wiki.gnewsense.org/


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