[GRASS-dev] Re: [DebianGIS] is this license GPL2 compatible?

[Francesco P. Lovergine]

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 08:17:00PM +1200, Hamish wrote:
> [sorry for the cross-posting, I'm casting the idea net wide]
> 
> is this license GPL2 compatible?
> is this license DFSG compatible? *
> 

No to both. 

> "There is no warranty whatsoever.  Use at your own risk. 
> 
> This code may be freely redistributed under the condition that the copyright 
> notices are not removed. You may distribute modified versions of this code 
> UNDER THE CONDITION THAT THIS CODE AND ANY MODIFICATIONS MADE TO IT IN THE 
> SAME FILE REMAIN UNDER COPYRIGHT OF FOOCORP, BOTH SOURCE AND OBJECT CODE ARE 
> MADE FREELY AVAILABLE WITHOUT CHARGE, AND CLEAR NOTICE IS GIVEN OF THE 
> MODIFICATIONS."
> 
> 
> the bit I am concerned about is the effect of "all your modifications are
> copyright us". (which is fine with me, but is it fine with the GPL?)
> 

GPL does not deal with the copyright ownership. Indeed some companies/foundations 
require that the owner of the code yields ownership to them in order to include
contribution, but that is not enforced in the license per se. See for instance
how many MySql patches are maintained off mainstream due to that: developers
of those patches are not inclined to assign copyright to MySQL AB, that does
not imply they cannot distribute autonomously their derivative work.

> I seem to recall seeing something very similar in the past, is this a known
> standard BSD/MIT/X variant?
> 

No, the old BSD clause was about _citation_ of the copyright older
in derivative/including works. I seriously doubt that could even
be considered for non-free due to limitation on distribution.

-- 
Francesco P. Lovergine