License question - SGI FSL B

Ian Chapman packages at amiga-hardware.com
Mon Nov 27 18:51:56 UTC 2006


Hi,

Is software licensed under or derived from the SGI FSL B 
(http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/) suitable for inclusion in FE? I 
would like to migrate GLEW (http://glew.sourceforge.net/) to FE if 
possible, yet it's various parts are licensed under GPL / BSD / GLX 
Public License and the SGI FSL B.

According to gnu.org this license is not free because:

"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."

This implies it's not suitable however certain parts of Mesa and other 
packages are included in core that are licensed under SGI FSL B.

Thanks.

-- 
Ian Chapman.




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