BOINC: lib/cal.h license issue agree with the DFSG?

[Sean Kellogg]

On Friday 01 January 2010 5:11:09 pm Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 01, 2010 at 03:13:58PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> > On Friday 01 January 2010 2:57:18 pm Francesco Poli wrote:
> > > > /* ============================================================
> > > > 
> > > > Copyright (c) 2007 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> > > > 
> > > > Redistribution and use of this material is permitted under the following
> > > > conditions:
> > > 
> > > I cannot find any permission to modify or distribute modified versions
> > > of the file.
> > > This seems to fail DFSG#3.
> 
> > What?! The grant is /right/ there... "Redistribution and use of this
> > material is permitted" provided the following criteria are met, and then
> > it lists the criteria. I suppose it could be its own little bullet point,
> > but that sure seems explicit to me. That you failed to see that as a grant
> > really calls into question the neutrality of the rest of your license
> > evaluation.
> 
> The grant covers redistribution and use.  It's my understanding that neither
> "redistribution" nor "use" encompasses modifications under copyright law,
> and Debian has consistently required an explicit grant of permission to
> modify and to distribute the resulting modified works in order to be
> considered DFSG-compliant.

You are quite right... I failed to notice Francesco was talking just about /modification/. That certainly is a problem and clearly runs afoul of DFSG #3. My apologies.

> > > > THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE USED, RELEASED, TRANSFERRED,
> > > > IMPORTED,
> > > > EXPORTED AND/OR RE-EXPORTED IN ANY MANNER PROHIBITED UNDER ANY
> > > > APPLICABLE LAWS,
> > > > INCLUDING U.S. EXPORT CONTROL LAWS REGARDING SPECIFICALLY DESIGNATED
> > > > PERSONS,
> > > > COUNTRIES AND NATIONALS OF COUNTRIES SUBJECT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
> > > > CONTROLS.
> 
> > > Enforcing export control laws (or other laws), through a copyright
> > > license is not a good thing to do, IMHO.
> > > I think that, if I violate some export control law, I should be
> > > prosecuted for breaching that law, without *also* having to face
> > > copyright violation suits.
> > 
> > Not saying I disagree, but your position on how export laws should be
> > enforced really isn't at issue here. The problem AMD is addressing here is
> > third party liability if someone where to violate US export laws. Is this
> > clause really any different than "you aren't allowed to do anything
> > illegal with this software?"
> 
> No, it's not different at all - and a license that says "you aren't allowed
> to do anything illegal with this software" is *not* DFSG-compliant.  Civil
> disobedience should not result in violations of the copyright licenses of
> software in Debian.

Really?! How delightfully libertarian. I guess all I can do is reiterate my position that I don't think the DFSG should be read that way and hope that the FTP masters continue to show less political and more pragmatic evaluation :)

-- 
Sean Kellogg
e: skellogg at probonogeek.org
w: http://blog.probonogeek.org