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(sorry for cross-posting, but not really sure whether this is purely a packaging matter or if it should be discussed "in the hallroom")
On IRC, Benjamin Weber pointed me to some odd situation about the "pico" and "pine" packages. They're part of the SUSE Linux OSS distribution but their license is not even near something OSI approved (not even to mention FSF).
Quoting Benjamin: "it doesn't allow redistribution of modified versions, and redistribution of the unmodified versions is only for inclusion in non-profit things or by prior inclusion".
Also read: http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v1.2/faq.html#6.2 http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-07-02-025-21-OP-CY-DB&am...
Comparing that to the OSI open source definition: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." Also violates this one: "The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software." And that one: "The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources."
How about dropping them from the distribution ? pico can be replaced by GNU nano (that is already included in the distribution btw), and pine.. well... anyone still use pine ? (hint: use mutt ;))
What do you think ?
NB: thanks to Benjamin for collecting all that data, I'm just transmitting ;)
cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\ pascal.bleser@skynet.be guru@unixtech.be __v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 02:34:21AM +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:
(sorry for cross-posting, but not really sure whether this is purely a packaging matter or if it should be discussed "in the hallroom")
On IRC, Benjamin Weber pointed me to some odd situation about the "pico" and "pine" packages. They're part of the SUSE Linux OSS distribution but their license is not even near something OSI approved (not even to mention FSF).
[...]
Please just open a bugreport, against Component "Legal Issues".
Ciao, Marcus
Em Seg, 2006-03-20 às 02:34 +0100, Pascal Bleser escreveu:
pico can be replaced by GNU nano (that is already included in the
I've already seen some distros using 'alias pico=nano'. If we get that, and also 'alias pine=mutt', it would be fine (although I don't use any, I know many ppl that come from other Unixes that are addicted to pico).
On Mar 20, 06 02:34:21 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:
On IRC, Benjamin Weber pointed me to some odd situation about the "pico" and "pine" packages. They're part of the SUSE Linux OSS distribution but their license is not even near something OSI approved (not even to mention FSF).
Correct. The pine license is neither OSI nor FSF approved. Debian-legal also was all negative about it.
Quoting Benjamin: "it doesn't allow redistribution of modified versions, and redistribution of the unmodified versions is only for inclusion in non-profit things or by prior inclusion".
The words of the pine license are unclear. Benjamin took one interpretation. We had a different interpretation in the past. But an unclear license is always a risk. We'll re-evaluate this in the light of a new OSS spirit.
The basic issue is: We have quite a number of patches to the pine package, and the U of W wants them upstream (at least according to the license). But in practice we failed to etablish an upstream contact. Any pointers?
Thanks for bringing this up again.
cheers, Jw.
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Juergen Weigert -
Marcus Meissner -
Mauricio Teixeira (netmask) -
Pascal Bleser