On Mon, Jul 04, 2016 at 12:23:00PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote: > I am also mindful of the interpretive principle I used to occasionally > espouse, essentially that we should scrutinize especially closely the > conditions of any bespoke copyleft license (or standard copyleft > license apparently supplemented by bespoke informal restrictive > interpretive statements), where the business model of the licensor is > some variant of 'proprietary relicensing', as (it seems) here. > > So, overall I'm inclined to say this license (which is not equivalent > to the Sleepycat license) is free but should be treated as > incompatible with GPLv2 and GPLv3, I have a couple of additional concerns, though, regarding "informal restrictive interpretive statements": In the FAQ for Cryptlib, it is said that "All commercial users must obtain a commercial license" [1], and separately [2] it is said that "Any software you create with this code may not be merely a set or subset of cryptlib, with or without minor added functionality or a different interface. In particular you can’t distribute cryptlib (or any modified form of it) as your own encryption or security product. This is to stop users adding their own wrappers and selling it as “their” software product." which I confess I don't quite understand if it is not a blanket prohibition on creating derivative works or a prohibition on rebranding of derivative works. On the same page the author says "Any and all large-scale commercial use of cryptlib requires a license." which I now take to mean "a license other than my bespoke version of the Sleepycat license". So, my revised view is that this license is sufficiently concerning that it should be treated as nonfree pending some adequate clarifications from the author. (If I were to reach a different conclusion I think I'd then be acting inconsistently with my past views on such things as the notorious iText license.) [1]http://www.cryptlib.com/security-faq [2]http://www.cryptlib.com/security-software/licensing _______________________________________________ legal mailing list legal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/legal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
