Yet another license question

Kevin Kofler kevin.kofler at chello.at
Tue Oct 3 05:13:21 UTC 2006


Tom 'spot' Callaway <tcallawa at ...> writes:
> This is BSD with advertising (GPL-incompatible, but free). OK for
> Fedora.

No, this is NOT the standard BSD advertising clause. The advertising clause 
covers DISTRIBUTION of software. This one covers USE. While I understand that 
the intent of this clause is just to enforce standard academic courtesy, I 
believe this is not anywhere near Free Software or Open Source. Restrictions on 
use are simply unacceptable under those guidelines. So I'd say this is NOT OK 
according to the licensing guidelines (which say the license should be Free 
Software and/or Open Source according to the FSF and/or OSI). Accidental 
violations by users not aware of that clause are also something to be concerned 
about. (As a user, I really do not expect to find this kind of licensing 
requirements in software I get from Fedora, and I don't think I'm the only one 
caught by surprise.)

        Kevin Kofler




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