Re: Info-Zip is still not free [Re: Intent to Develop: unzip]

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, David Coe wrote:

> IANAL and IDSFD, but ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/license.html
> does have one "oh, but..".  Anybody know if they're working on
> fixing this?:
> 
> > Exceptions 
> >
> > The license given above covers only Info-ZIP's code. There is 
> > one file in the UnZip distribution that is covered by a separate 
> > copyright and license: 
> >
> >     unreduce.c 
> >
> > This is the only remaining trace of Samuel H. Smith's original 
> > 1989 code, and its license explicitly prohibits commercial use 
> > and requires distribution of source code if the code is used 
> > in another program. See the comments in the file for details. 

A variable named "COPYRIGHT_CLEAN" exists so that this code is not
included. According to the INSTALL file:

      COPYRIGHT_CLEAN   (now default)
      USE_SMITH_CODE
        The last chunk of code in UnZip that was blatantly derived from Sam
        Smith's unzip 2.0 (as in, "substantially similar") is in unreduce.c.
        Since reducing was only used by very early PKZIP beta versions (0.9x),
        support for it is now omitted by default (COPYRIGHT_CLEAN).  To in-
        clude unreducing capability, define USE_SMITH_CODE.  Note that this
        subjects UnZip to any and all restrictions in Smith's copyright; see
        the UnZip COPYING file for details.

Thanks.

-- 
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