Ross Bencina wrote:
PortAudio upstream was planning to change the license to clarify this, but I don't think they ever got around to tracking down all the contributors in order to do this.I think there was never any clarity on what the license should be changed to. I am in touch with all of the contributors who hold copyright on the PortAudio source base. If Debian legal could provide some guidance as to what the change should be we would be happy to co-operate to ensure greater interoperability with the Debian Free Software community.
I would like to see PortAudio use an unmodified X11 license (widely used, and identical to the current PortAudio license except for the non-binding "request" clause). Rather than appearing in the license's list of conditions, this clause could appear in the documentation, or any other way that is explicitly not a condition of the license. Or, if the "request" clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. Of course, licensing decisions are entirely up to you and the other PortAudio copyright holders. I'm speaking as an Audacity maintainer and as a Debian developer. Fixing this possible ambiguity would make things easier for me and other users and distributors of PortAudio. [Moving this thread to the debian-legal and portaudio lists. Please see those lists for followups. Other addresses have been moved to BCC.]