Re: Is this license within the DSFG?
John Hasler wrote:
> Javier Fdz-Sanguino Pen~a quotes:
> > No charge, other than an "at-cost" distribution fee, may be charged for
> > copies, derivations, or distributions of this material without the
> > express written consent of the copyright holders.
>
> I wrote:
> > Non-free.
>
> Peter S Galbraith writes:
> > Why?
>
> And quotes:
> > You may charge a reasonable copying fee for any distribution of this
> > Package. You may charge any fee you choose for support of this Package.
> > You may not charge a fee for this Package itself. However, you may
> > distribute this Package in aggregate with other (possibly commercial)
> > programs as part of a larger (possibly commercial) software distribution
> > provided that you do not advertise this Package as a product of your own.
>
> And writes:
> > What's the difference?
>
> Read the second sentence in the portion of the Artistic License that you
> quoted. It grants permission to sell CD's with Perl on them as long there
> is other stuff as well.
That's even more restrictive. Really means you can't make a
Perl-only CD and sell it for $5.
> Also read this, from the definitions section:
Right, but there's no real difference between:
1- No charge, other than an "at-cost" distribution fee
2-
You may not charge a fee for this Package itself.
You may charge a reasonable copying fee for any distribution of
this Package.
> > "Reasonable copying fee" is whatever you can justify on the basis of
> > media cost, duplication charges, time of people involved, and so on.
> > (You will not be required to justify it to the Copyright Holder, but only
> > to the computing community at large as a market that must bear the fee.)
>
> This turns the clause you quoted into a non-binding request.
So that's it:
_You will not be required to justify it to the Copyright Holder_
Seems like the license in question is very close to being
DFSG-compliant. Although they never _really_ say you are allowed
to modify the code:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
provided that this entire copyright notice is duplicated in all such
copies. No charge, other than an "at-cost" distribution fee, may be
charged for copies, derivations, or distributions of this material
without the express written consent of the copyright holders.
They mention you can't charge for distribution of `derivations',
so that could be interpreted as an implicit permission to
modify...
Peter
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